Introduction and Phil McLemore's Background

Part 1 of 4 · Ep. 246

Guest [00:00:01] Mormon Stories podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org

Andrew Ainsworth [00:00:24] welcome to Mormon Stories. I'm Andrew Ainsworth. Our guest today on Mormon Stories is going to be Phil McLemore. Phil is a longtime convert to the LDS Church. He served as a CES instructor for many years and also served as an LDS chaplain in the Air Force. Phil has had some very challenging experiences in life that caused him to reach out to Eastern spiritual traditions in search of relief. And not only did he find the relief there, but unexpectedly, what he found completely transformed his spirituality. This is what I hope to be the first in a series of podcasts here on Mormon Stories where we interview Mormons who have incorporated Eastern spiritual traditions into their personal spiritual practice. In this case, the Eastern spiritual tradition that Phil settled on was the Hindu Yogic tradition. And so he's going to be telling us about that. He's also going to be telling us about meditation and, and give us some how to's and the purposes for meditation for those of you who are interested. And lastly, in the third and fourth segments of the podcast, he's going to be reviewing with us two of his excellent articles that he had published in Sunstone Magazine, one of which is called Mormon Mantras and the other called the Yoga of Christ. And both of those excellent articles provide Phil's insights from Eastern spiritual practice on Western Christianity and Mormonism in particular. So I'm very excited to have Phil here today.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:01:59] Phil McLemore, welcome to Mormon Stories. I'd like to get started jumping in where we always do with our guests, which is just to have you give us a bit of your background. Why don't you tell us about where you were born and raised and your religious upbringing, any sort of foundational developments or events or experiences in your spiritual life. Why don't you take us up to about the point where you're 19 years old around there?

Phil McLemore [00:02:33] Well, I was raised Catholic, actually. Went to Catholic schools, attended an all boy private Catholic school, always assumed Catholicism was true. I can remember we had Mormons that lived across the street. This was back in the early 60s.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:02:53] And where was this exactly? Where'd you grow up?

Phil McLemore [00:02:56] Started in Tampa, Florida, but by the time I got into high school we were in Sacramento, California. And of course in those days Mormons got up Early. The fathers got up early for priesthood meeting, came back, picked up the family for Sunday school, went to Sunday school, came back home, then went back later for a sacrament meeting. Of course, Relief Society and Primary was during the week. I just watched this Mormon family coming and going to church multiple times during the week. And I remember on a Sunday morning looking at the comics after we'd come home from mass and I said to my mother, boy, this spirituality stuff is strange because we spend an hour, go to Mass, we're going to heaven. These poor Mormon folks across the street are running themselves ragged going back and forth to church and they're going to hell. It just didn't seem quite just. But I found church boring, certainly for a 17 year old. My father died when I was seven. My mother never remarried, she worked, and so I did spend quite a bit of time on my own. And she really got mad at the priest at some point because of something that happened to my brother in school. So there was no real pressure from my mother to continue to go to church. I had started college, that was in 1968, and attending church just wasn't really part of the environment at that point.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:04:36] Okay, so about what age would you say you kind of tapered off and stopped attending your Catholic services?

Phil McLemore [00:04:45] Oh, I stopped right when I graduated from high school at 17.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:04:49] Okay, prior to that, did you consider yourself a believer in Catholicism? Did you have spiritual experiences in a Catholic context that at least caused you to believe you had a testimony in the Catholic Church?

Phil McLemore [00:05:05] I just accepted it because I was raised that way. I don't remember any particular spiritual experiences. Certainly one of the things that drew me into Mormonism was a whole set and range of spiritual experiences that I hadn't had before. From 17 to 19. Even though I didn't consider myself really a spiritual person, I was always interested in what people believed, what impact it had in their lives. And so I spent those two years really attending any church that a girlfriend I had was going to. I've probably been inside every church imaginable, just in those two years with different friends. If there were tent meetings on the side of the road, I'd go in and have that experience of those charismatic tent meetings. So I had a pretty broad range of experience. When I was finally introduced to the church, I actually took, I had Jehovah's Witnesses come by and knock on the door and took their six month Bible study. So by the time Mormonism came into my world, I had quite a variety of experiences.

Introduction to the LDS Church and Conversion

Andrew Ainsworth [00:06:23] And did you say that you were introduced to The LDS Church. Through a girlfriend.

Phil McLemore [00:06:28] It was through a girlfriend. It was a girlfriend that actually chose another.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:06:37] And.

Phil McLemore [00:06:37] And that angered me somewhat, and I distanced myself from her. And she very patiently, over the course of a year, invited me to things. I never really followed up. And then one time, her fiance, this was during Vietnam, her fiance had enlisted in the Air Force, was at training camp. And she called me and said she had a bunch of girls that needed a ride to an activity and wanted to know if I would help. And I thought, man, bunch of girls. If it doesn't work with her, maybe there's some other opportunities. Well, they were all Mormon girls. It was a Mormon family day at a picnic, and the missionaries were already prepared for ambush.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:07:30] So when you showed up and dropped off the load of LDS girls, you got ambushed there by missionaries?

Phil McLemore [00:07:36] Well, they were better than that. They invited me for the festivities. So there were games and there was food. And then toward the end of the day, we're going to Cindy's house. The missionaries are going to be there. And that's what started it.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:07:51] Okay, so did you start taking the missionary discussions right away?

Phil McLemore [00:07:57] We started with discussion one that night.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:08:00] Okay, and what caused you to continue with the discussions?

Phil McLemore [00:08:07] I was very impressed with the people. The families I met at the picnic were very impressive. The particular group of young adults that were a part of that were just some of the friendliest and kindest and nicest people I had known. So it was really just the draw of nice people.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:08:29] And how long did it take for you to decide to join the LDS Church?

Phil McLemore [00:08:35] It wasn't easy. I went through the entire discussions. It was easy for me to comprehend the level of commitment. This wasn't an hour of mass on Sunday. I could see this was lifestyle. I could see that this was going to impact every aspect of my life. And I wasn't quite sure I was willing to do that unless I had some deeper conviction. So at the end of the first set of discussions, I just wasn't ready. So they asked me to invite a friend and take them again, which I did. And then after the second set of discussions, I still wasn't ready. So they asked me to invite another friend. And we went through the discussions again. And it was on the fifth discussion, third set. My friend was being very obstinate. He was a very bright, very bright person. And he was actually asking the missionaries a series of questions that were putting him in an intellectual trap. And I could see him falling into the trap. They didn't see it coming, but I'd already Been through the fifth discussion a couple of times. So I just took over. I pushed the missionaries back. These were the flannel board days. I moved the flannel board figures around, retaught the discussion, and then we just got to an impasse as to what we were agreeing or not agreeing to. And I just started saying to my friend Bob, I don't understand why you can't see this. It's so clear. And then I look around the room and everyone has all these goofy smiles. And I thought, oh, no, I'm just curious.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:10:13] What's the topic of the fifth discussion?

Phil McLemore [00:10:15] In those days, that was the plan of salvation.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:10:18] Okay.

Phil McLemore [00:10:19] Pre existence, spirit world, degrees of glory.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:10:24] Okay. And that obviously sounds like something that really resonated with you.

Phil McLemore [00:10:30] It did. It made sense in a way that heaven and hell did not from before.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:10:38] Okay. And is that when you decided to be baptized? Was that pretty much the pivotal turning point?

Phil McLemore [00:10:48] That was the clincher. I didn't actually commit that night. I went and played basketball with the missionaries the next day. And the missionary that had taught me his name was Hiram Johnson Smith III or HIRAM SMITH JOHNSON III. And he challenged me to a game of 21. And he said, if I lost, I'd have to be baptized. If I won, I wouldn't have to be baptized. And he won by one point at the last second. So,

Andrew Ainsworth [00:11:21] in fact, I think I heard a story about that. Someone said, who were those three big Indians guiding that ball into the basket for that last point?

Phil McLemore [00:11:28] Well, actually, I was ahead by 10 points. And I thought, this is going to be awkward. And then he started heaving in these top of the key shots, so something was with him.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:11:42] Excellent. Okay, so you joined at what age then exactly was this. Was this at 19 years old?

Mission Experience and Early Faith

Phil McLemore [00:11:51] I was a few months before 20.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:11:54] Okay. And so that's prime mission age, when young men usually leave for their missions. Did you serve a mission?

Phil McLemore [00:12:05] I did. The very next year, the bishop called me in and it's a long story, but my name had come into his mind. He had been fasting and praying about me. He told me the Lord wanted me to serve. We had such a spiritual experience together. It was clearly the seemed to be the right thing. So I accepted the call and went to Brazil.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:12:36] Oh, wow. And how was your mission experience?

Phil McLemore [00:12:43] Boy, very complicated. I went to a mission that was one of the highest baptizing missions in the world. It's one of those South American nightmares. We had a president. The first president was determined to. Well, let me tell you this. We had 5,200 baptisms a year with 200 missionaries. It was a heavy salesman approach. There was tons of pressure. There's just many, many sad stories that are related to the mission. Surprisingly, being a member of the church just a year, it didn't take long to figure out this is not godly. And I actually rebelled against that whole system. I mean, we actually had a core of giant sized missionaries that were dragging missionaries out of their beds in the middle of the night and threatening bodily harm if their zones didn't get X number of baptisms. So it was either that or rewards, leather jackets and other things that were given out. So it was pretty sad. Fortunately, my rebellion landed me in far out cities, in little two missionary towns where we couldn't be overly supervised. And in that context I had wonderful experiences just teaching the gospel in a spiritual way and working with families that I loved and enjoyed.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:14:33] And I neglected to ask you this when we were discussing your experiences with the missionaries, but would you say that your conversion to the LDS church was. You already mentioned the social component, really admiring the, the young men and women that you were interacting with. You mentioned when you started teaching the fifth discussion to your friend how there was a logical appeal to you that the idea of a pre existence and mortal existence and an afterlife made more sense than just degrees of glory, made more sense than heaven and hell. So there's a logical appeal to. But would you also say that there was a, was there any big spiritual conversion moment for you or was it more a social intellectual conversion?

Phil McLemore [00:15:32] The moment, several things. The moment was that night at the discussion when I started teaching my friend and saying to him, can't you see? Don't you understand? It was obvious I was believing it at that point and, and the theology seemed right to me. It was comprehensive, it was expansive, it seemed to be just, it was just a vision and a system of belief that made sense. And on top of that, the people I was being fellowshiped by were people who were living with integrity, whose religion was a part of their day to day lives. It wasn't, it wasn't an afterthought, it's who and what they were. So the integrity of that belief and living that out was very impressive to me. I just came to a point where I thought this is what I want and this is what I believe, okay?

Andrew Ainsworth [00:16:30] And so there is definitely a level of belief there. And I guess what I'm trying to get at is what the foundation of that belief was, simply because people believe for different reasons. For example, today I know that the typical Missionary approach is to teach about the Godhead, teach about the Restoration, teach about the Book of Mormon, encourage someone to pray and hope that the Spirit will touch that person's heart and that they will receive some sort of spiritual witness or spiritual confirmation, some sort of experience with the divine that will give them a testimony. And I guess that is what I am getting at. Do you feel like you ever had that experience either before joining the church or afterwards while you were on your mission?

Phil McLemore [00:17:26] What happened to me was the way I experienced Catholicism, it was very sterile. Mormonism was a very personal religion. Instead of praying to kind of an unknown God, I'm praying to my Heavenly Father. So my prayers began to feel more personal. I don't remember any dramatic sorts of any particular dramatic spiritual experience necessarily, but there was just an overall sense that I had entered into a relationship with God. He was aware of me, he was responding to me. He was guiding my life. And as a missionary, I did feel guided in my work. We did things that had the evidence of inspiration. I loved studying the Gospel. I loved studying the Scriptures and memorizing the Scriptures. I read the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, discourses of Brigham Young, Articles of Faith, Jesus, the Christ. I read all of those on my mission and was just excited about learning and studying and growing.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:18:47] So overall, it sounds like you had a somewhat, in some ways disturbing, challenging, but also spiritually fulfilling mission. Is that how you'd characterize it?

Phil McLemore [00:19:01] Yeah, my mission experience, on balance, was very maturing for me. I was spared much of the nightmare. No one knows for sure, but it is estimated that somewhere between 50 and 75% of the missionaries who served in the first part of my mission went inactive when they got home. The mission president that followed the first one was a very kind, very spiritual, caring person. He turned that whole thing around. So I made the assumption that this was an aberration in Mormon missions and just chalked it up to that and pressed on. What saved me was being unwilling to participate in immoral or unethical activities and being banished to little towns out in the interior.

Post-Mission Life, Marriage, and Military Service

Andrew Ainsworth [00:19:55] Okay, and so why don't you bring us forward then to your post mission life?

Phil McLemore [00:20:04] My mother moved to Florida from California. I moved in with her in Tampa, Florida. I worked and went to the University of South Florida, got my bachelor's degree, then went up to the University of Florida for a Master's degree. I actually went to the University of Florida because I had been given an opportunity to teach evening Institute of Religion classes. When I was at the University of South Florida, I was involved as the LDSSA student leader on campus. The CES administrator in that area had recommended me as they were actually looking for a graduate student to teach evening classes at the Institute of the University of Florida. That turned out to be a great situation for me. I could work on my master's degree, teach institute in the evenings. And at that point I was dreaming about being an institute instructor.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:21:08] And did you say what your degrees were in your bachelor's and master's?

Phil McLemore [00:21:14] They were in educational psychology.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:21:17] Okay.

Phil McLemore [00:21:19] Now I will say once I was not married at that point, I was 20, 25, 26, and I spent a ton of time taking religion graduate religion and philosophy classes at the University of Florida just for fun.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:21:41] And so when did marriage come into the picture for you?

Phil McLemore [00:21:46] What happened is after I graduated, I was moved to Auburn University to be the Institute of Religion director there. And at that point, I was the only single Institute of Religion director in the system, which made some uncomfortable. So there was a bit of pressure to get married. I. Ultimately was invited to do a workshop at a large single adult activity in Atlanta, Georgia, and I did a workshop on prayer. If you remember single adults in those days, I guess that would be 1977. No. Yeah, about 1977, it was young single adults. So these were unmarried or divorced Latter Day Saints over the age of 26. So that was the group. And my wife had been previously married, had three children. She came to my workshop. I met her afterward at the dance. We had a wonderful evening. And. I started driving from Auburn to Atlanta, Georgia every weekend. We dated for, oh, I can't remember now, just really about four or five months. And married. And then she came, moved over with the children to Auburn University, where we started our family.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:23:35] And I know from reading one of your essays that was published in Sunstone Magazine by the name of Mormon Mantras, I know that you published your experience eventually getting to work for the church education system and serving as a chaplain in the U.S. air Force for 20 years. Why don't you summarize that for us as well?

Phil McLemore [00:24:02] Well, I served as the institute director at Auburn University. I was then moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where I supervised early morning and home study. Seminary in a large area, was moved a couple of years later to the University of Georgia. I was the institute director there, did seminary supervision also in the state. And then in 1984, there was just a confluence of circumstances that brought up this chaplain opportunity. The church has a very hard time finding qualified people to serve on active duty as a military chaplain because we don't have religion and theology degrees. It's hard to find LDS guys, number one, who want to work in an interfaith environment, number two, who are qualified to do so. As it turns out, all of those graduate religion classes that I had taken for fun at the University of Florida, they actually ended up giving me enough hours to qualify for the chaplain service. And so I was recruited with some vigor to resign my job at the Institute of Religion at the University of Georgia and serve as an active duty chaplain. Because if the church couldn't fill that spot in so many weeks, another church would get solved a lot of problems for us. It allowed us to get off a river that was causing a lot of mold in our house and aggravating my wife's allergies. It allowed allowed us to sell the house and pay off some debts. So it just seemed like a good thing to do. Plus, as the institute director, I actually had involved our students in a number of interfaith activities around the campus with the other religious student centers. And I think the church saw me as someone who would work effectively in an interfaith environment. So it just seemed to be a good move for all involved. Of course, as a military chaplain, which I did a full career, a little over 20 years, you work in an interfaith environment. I did Protestant or general Christian worship services, weddings, funerals, Sunday schools, marriage retreats. Chaplains do tons of personal counseling, marriage counseling, in addition to the military responsibilities and activities. So it's quite an interesting job with a lot of variety.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:26:41] So as a chaplain, let me make sure I understand that correctly. As an LDS chaplain, it sounds like your duties went beyond ministering just to Latter Day Saints, but included members of other faiths as well, Is that right?

Phil McLemore [00:26:58] That's correct. The chaplain service really saw chaplains divided into Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and then later Muslim. So the LDS chaplains really served in the Protestant category. And probably only 1% of my work had anything to do with Latter Day Saints.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:27:22] Okay, interesting. And so would you be leading weekly Protestant services on Sundays?

Phil McLemore [00:27:30] Absolutely.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:27:31] Okay, tell us a little bit about that, because that sounds a little unusual to have an LDS member leading Protestant services. I mean, were these services the same services that would have been attended by LDS servicemen as well?

Phil McLemore [00:27:53] No, the church expected LDS members to go to the local ward off the base.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:27:59] Okay.

Phil McLemore [00:28:00] So I'm actually leading a general Christian or a general Protestant service. We would have different flavors of services. They would be like a typical Baptist service or Methodist service. Lutheran Episcopalian chaplains would do more of a high church sort of service. There was a fair amount of controversy. Many of the very conservative Christian chaplains felt it was inappropriate for Mormons to be leading worship. In some cases, our chaplains would be banned from leading worship. It all depended on the supervising chaplain. Sometimes the congregations. People in the congregations would be upset and threaten to leave if the Mormon led the service. Sometimes there were no problems whatsoever. So that's a whole big story in and of itself.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:28:54] Well, it's interesting just because, frankly, I've never heard of anyone in this role. And so it's interesting to me. Anyway, can you tell us, I'm just curious. When you were holding your Protestant services, did you experience what you would call spiritual experiences? Would you feel the spirit leading a Protestant meeting or participating in a Protestant meeting?

Serving as a Military Chaplain

Phil McLemore [00:29:22] Oh, certainly. I mean, I was certainly restricted to teaching only from the Bible. But anytime you're studying the Scriptures, you're trying to prepare a message that you believe is going to nourish other people's souls, and you're doing it prayerfully and you're teaching it with conviction. That's going to be a spiritual experience. And I just began to discover so many wonderful people who came from a variety of religious backgrounds that it was enjoyable. It was spiritual and. And for a Mormon who in some ways expected. Less, I guess, spiritual development out of Baptists and Methodists, I ran across many folks that I felt were Christlike in very rich ways. And I admired these folks. And I actually spent some time intentionally interviewing people, trying to figure out what it was about them that enabled them to develop what I was witnessing as genuine Christlike qualities. And as I would talk with these folks, what became clear to me was it didn't have anything to do with them being a Methodist or a Baptist or a Catholic. They were just qualities that had developed within these people as individuals, and their church seemed to be irrelevant.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:31:02] So it sounds like by growing up Catholic, then becoming lds, then leading Protestant worship services, it sounds like a lot of these barriers or these walls, these very strict defining boundaries between religions or churches really started to melt for you. Would you characterize it that way, in other words, that you didn't see? Well, I'll just give you an example. I wager to guess that there would be some Latter Day Saints who would have a very hard time leading Protestant worship services as not feeling some sort of being pricked in their conscience about whether that's the right thing to do. But it seems to you that through this experience working as a chaplain, that these sorts of religious boundaries didn't really matter to you as Much as they might to other folks?

Phil McLemore [00:32:08] Well, no. And frankly, the role of a chaplain is to be of service in the broadest possible way without an agenda. I mean, the church has military chaplains to be a positive influence to serve others. But there's also a sub agenda of public relations work of people being exposed to Latter Day Saints and seeing them in a positive light. So I know the church sees a lot of that service as indirect missionary work. We were forbidden from doing any direct missionary work because it compromises the purpose of the chaplain service. So to be in an environment where really your focus is just to help people live their lives productively and spiritually and to help develop their and nurture their spiritual growth is a great place. It's a great environment.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:33:03] And so your role as a chaplain really demanded that you have an open mindedness. I mean, it sounds like you were already a very open minded person from the get go, having gone and investigated every possible church religion you could find when you were 17, 18, 19. It seems like this would just further open and broaden your mind and your heart to all different faiths and people of all faiths.

Phil McLemore [00:33:37] It did. Now, I did, certainly for the first, I'd say, 15 years of my military chaplain career, I did always believe that Mormonism was superior, that our doctrine was better, our lifestyle and adherence to what we believed was superior to what others were doing in general. Again, I would see these individuals exhibit spiritual development that I wasn't necessarily seeing in myself or other church members. But on a whole, because of what I was seeing going on with other ministers and priests, I was still convinced at least 15 years into my service as a chaplain that what we were doing was obviously superior because the church was true.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:34:34] Okay. And this is probably an appropriate place to segue to something you brought up in your essay entitled Mormon Mantras. And by the way, I think it'd be great if I think we'll try to put a link up on the Mormon Stories website so people can read your essays. But I remember reading in your Mormon Mantras essay that everything was going along very well in your work as a chaplain. You were enjoying it. You were having these wonderful experiences with people of different faiths, but that inside there was this sort of nagging dissatisfaction or this inner turmoil. And why don't you talk a little bit about that?

Phil McLemore [00:35:23] Well, several things began to happen because I'd had special training in marriage counseling. Anytime I would be stationed in an area, the local bishops would tend to send me the couples and the wards that were in need of Marriage counseling. Most bishops are too busy and most haven't been trained in marriage counseling. So to have someone like me in the area was very attractive. So I began spending a lot of time counseling with LDS couples. And at first I would try to incorporate Gospel principles into my marriage counseling, thinking that this is what's going to help. More than anything else, I was a bit dismayed to find out that gospel living really was not empowering couples to overcome the core issues in their marital difficulties, which were a reflection of their own personal issues and problems. In many cases, I would just have to give that up entirely and default to standard sorts of communication, conflict resolution, effective communication techniques, and so forth. That began to bother me, that began to disturb me, that I wasn't seeing the Gospel bearing fruit at the core of people's difficulties and problems. Of course, it's easy to see this stuff outside yourself more clearly than to see it inside yourself. At some point, I began to be aware of my wife's accurate observations that there were things about me that really needed to be changed. And as I sat back and reflected on that, I realized that many of the Christlike qualities I had always desired and prayed for and worked for just were not evident. And that did have an impact in our family. I think my wife expected better, as she should have. And as I began to reflect on that, I was a little troubled because in my case, everything I did was involved in religion or spirituality or spiritual growth. Whether I was working as an institute teacher or as a military chaplain, I had the time and the facility and the opportunity to be immersed in reading, studying, praying, growing, learning. Much more so than someone who works a full time job and then does their personal spiritual disciplines as they can. And I, I just kind of came to the conclusion that, gosh, if this isn't working for me at the core level, what's the problem? It just began to create some discomfort and doubts and concerns.

Chronic Pain and the Discovery of Meditation

Andrew Ainsworth [00:38:26] Okay, why don't you bring us up to the point then when you had a very serious bout with some chronic physical pain?

Phil McLemore [00:38:52] Yeah. In July of 1999, I had an accident where I injured my neck, my left shoulder, and my back. The shoulder pain was. The shoulder injury was the most obvious because it was so painful. And it took about eight to 10 months of treatment to rehab that shoulder. What I didn't realize at the time was that my neck and back had been injured in ways that were progressive in nature. And it took about a year for those symptoms to manifest. At about toward the end of the summer of 2000, I began to have a cascade of pain, horrible pain patterns, dizziness, Just a load of problems that, that came out of the blue. I went to the doctors several times. I began to have pains in my chest that felt like a heart attack. They diagnosed me as someone having an anxiety disorder, which made no sense to me. And pretty soon, after months and months of chronic pain, what happens is your nervous system does get burnt out and then you start manifesting stress symptoms, anxiety symptoms. Anxiety, over a long period of time, ultimately is going to turn over to depression. And it just didn't take very long before I was a mess.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:40:43] And so what did you do to try to solve this? I mean, you mentioned going to a doctor and getting misdiagnosed as having an anxiety disorder. Anything else that you reached out to or turned to to try to overcome this physical and what was now mental and emotional pain?

Phil McLemore [00:41:08] Yeah, because I wasn't getting any medical support. I just approached it from a spiritual perspective. I began to study and fast and pray. Everyone who knew me and loved me blessed me. My son gave me a blessing, my bishop blessed me, My stake president blessed me. I began studying about healing. And then you start to do things superstitiously. You pray more, thinking that If I prayed 10 minutes more, maybe God will take mercy on me and heal me. And I just did everything in my knowledge to be able to find relief or to be blessed in some way. And I actually just continued to get worse and worse, probably at a point of what I would call collapse. I was over a year and a half into this with no relief. And I picked up a book by Jon Kabat Zinn called Full Catastrophe Living. It's actually a book about his. He was the director of the Pain the Stress Reduction Pain Management Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. And the book was his program for managing chronic pain and stress. And it was a program that was built on Buddhist meditation principles, simple yoga practice, and some body work, body awareness and body energy work. And it was a book I'd actually had for 10 years, but it just sat on my shelf. I hadn't really been motivated to get into it. That was kind of my last ditch effort. So from that book I read about stress and pain. As he explained it, I began practicing the meditation techniques. As he explained, I started doing simple yoga and the other body work that is recommended in his program. And it was very difficult at first. First two weeks I didn't have the success that I thought I would have, but I didn't have anything else and I just stuck with it. And then I began to notice after a few more weeks that during the period of time in which I was meditating, I did not have the symptoms. I didn't have the dizziness, I didn't have the pain, I didn't have anxiety. There was just calmness and an absence of those symptoms. Well, that being the case, it really motivated me to continue the meditation practice. In hindsight, I mean, as a meditation instructor now, it's hard for me to encourage people to get through the initial two to four to six weeks of just work involved in learning how to establish yourself in meditation where you can start receiving the benefits. So it becomes self motivating. Most people try it for a few weeks, they don't get the results they want and they quit. What dawned on me was I had this guru of pain and stress always lurking over me, so to speak. And frankly, if you're only going to get relief from pain and distress during meditation, you're going to spend a lot of time in meditation. So I ended up logging a lot of hours in meditation and meditative yoga. And what dawned on me at one point was, wow, if I can be free from these symptoms, let's say for 20 minutes or for an hour, why can't I be free from them for two hours or three hours or half a day? It was something that gave me a tremendous amount of hope.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:45:27] Okay, and why don't you tell us then about. I don't want to go into the mechanics of meditation just yet. I want to cover that a little bit more in depth now. But I just want to kind of wrap up the sort of background story before we take a deeper dive into meditation and Eastern thought in general. But did you have any other main books you read or sources you turned to that introduced you to the practice of meditation or yoga or other Eastern spiritual paths?

Phil McLemore [00:46:14] Yeah, what happened was I providentially ran across a Deepak Chopra audio program called Training the Mind, Healing the Body. That program was so hopeful and inspiring to me. I began attending meditation and other types of seminars at the Chopra center. And I ended up adopting his particular style of meditation called primordial sound meditation, which is a yogic form of meditation. So I switched from kind of a Buddhist mindfulness type of meditation that Jon Kabat Zinn uses in his program and rooted myself deeply in a classic yoga form of meditation. And it was soon after doing that that I began to notice other things happening other than just symptom relief. What I began to notice was that when I would do my scripture reading in the morning, My understanding of the scriptures, the inspiration that came to me from the scriptures was greatly enhanced. I began having spiritual perceptions that I hadn't had before. My prayers suddenly began to be much more richer and more meaningful, in some cases almost poetic, which certainly wouldn't be descriptive of my personality. And at some point I realized that this meditative path was not primarily about stress reduction and pain management, but that it really was a spiritual path. And it was that that motivated me to start to begin really an in depth study of meditation. Where did it come from? What's the philosophy undergirding it? For the first five years, it was pretty much done in the context of the teachings of Chopra and others in the yoga tradition. I actually trained to become one of his meditation instructors. I ultimately ran into some conflict with business practices and the way the system was being run at that time. He actually left. He moved on to do other things and, and left others to take over the day to day business of the center. He personally was very helpful to me in establishing my meditation practice. And after he was gone, it just didn't seem to be the right place for me. So I ended up training with a group in Florida for certification, started teaching meditation on my own at that point, and then in the last five years have come under the tutelage of a gentleman named Roy Davis, who is a direct disciple of the famous yogi Yogananda, who came over to America in 1920 from India. And he's currently my meditation teacher.

Early Meditation Practice and Personal Transformation

Andrew Ainsworth [00:49:48] Okay, I'm intrigued by this quote that you have in your Mormon Mantras essay. You summarized your meditation practice like this. You said after three and a half years of meditation, I experienced the realization that without the goal setting or other conscious self improvement efforts I tried in the past, I had become much less defensive, selfish, impatient and judgmental. I had also become far more emotionally vulnerable, open and honest. The positive spiritual qualities I had worked at, mostly unsuccessfully for 30 years, were now simply unfolding. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? Can you expand on that just a bit?

Phil McLemore [00:50:37] Well, during this physical crises, the threat that I was facing was if I couldn't do my military job, I'd be medically retired and not have a full retirement, which we really needed for the stability of our family. So in those early, those first three years when I was learning to meditate, the goal really was to manage the symptoms, to be able to get to work and to do a good job so that I could ultimately be able to retire from the military. And I had no other than That I really didn't have any definitive spiritual goals. Now, you can tell from that list you read, those were my wife's complaints that I could be sarcastic, I could be judgmental, I could be rude, I could be impatient, I could be emotionally withdrawn. I mean, those were the things that she did not want in our relationship. She wanted Christlike qualities, she wanted honesty, she wanted openness, she wanted affection. She wanted. Those things you would desire in an ideal relationship. The sad thing is, at that point, after 30 years of living Mormonism as richly as I could, those spiritual qualities had really not become a reality. And I would do things. And, you know, if she would say to me, you need to be more patient, I would set a patience goal. I would go to the temple, I would fast, I would pray, and there would be these small improvements. But, you know, they really weren't the things that should have been happening for someone who was desiring to exhibit patience with their. With their family. And so here I go through this three year period where I'm just trying to survive and do my job. I'm not trying to necessarily become Christ. Like, although I am recognizing there's something going on with me spiritually in a new way. And we just had a day of recognition. My wife was walking through the room, she stopped and sat down in front of me, and she said, you know, you're different. And I said, what do you mean? And then she went through this list that you just read. You're not sarcastic and rude the way you used to be. You're not controlling, you're not judgmental, you're not critical. You're emotionally vulnerable and open. And the question for both of us was, whoops, when did this happen and how did this happen? Because it really wasn't intentional.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:53:31] Okay. And so for all of our wives who are listening and desiring the same results for their husbands,

Andrew Ainsworth [00:53:38] what are the

Andrew Ainsworth [00:53:39] best books or the best resources that you can point them to to learn about meditative practice?

Phil McLemore [00:53:50] Oh, boy, that's a tough question. Give me some time to think about that. It's hard to recommend books not knowing where people are. I have a variety of books I recommend. When I get to know somebody, when I have a sense for where their beliefs are, what works for them? The meditation book market is very confusing. There are many different styles, many different systems. Yeah. And it's very easy for people to pick up two or three books, find contradictory things, get discouraged, and just throw the whole thing up in the air.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:54:29] Okay, maybe what we'll do then is in this next Major segment of the interview where we go more into the mechanics of meditation, the how to. We can distinguish between. We can lay some background and distinguish between the various traditions and different ways of practice. And then you can think about it after this interview is concluded. And if you have any main recommendations or anything like that, we can always put links up on the Mormon Stories website for people to refer to.

Phil McLemore [00:55:05] Yeah. And see books that were meaningful to me don't necessarily have that same impact on others.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:55:11] Sure.

Phil McLemore [00:55:12] Deepak Chopra's Seven Spiritual Laws of Success was foundational for me. His book Power, Freedom and Grace was foundational. Eckhart Tolle's the Power of now was significant as far as getting my mind thinking in a metaphysical way. Meditation instruction was actually done personally. I mean, I received personal instruction even though I had learned stuff from a book initially. And that's the most effective way is from an instructor that knows what they're doing. And I've actually developed my own sort of system for teaching meditation. So Meditation for Dummies is not a bad book. It's more in a Buddhist style. I'm kind of in the yogic style. But there's a tremendous amount of wonderful information in that book. So I'll think of some others as we move along.

Healing Through Meditation, Yoga, and Medicine

Andrew Ainsworth [00:56:15] Okay. And so you summarize in your Mormon Mantras essay that with a combination of meditation, yoga, and medical treatment, you eventually became 90% symptom free. And is that where you are today?

Andrew Ainsworth [00:56:32] Yeah.

Phil McLemore [00:56:32] What happened was they finally looked at me a little more closely and I had injuries to my spine that were causing the pain patterns that mimicked heart attack. So there was actually something going on, just not anxiety. I was able to start a yoga program that was designed to help my back. Anti inflammatories helped and some other things, some physical therapy. So this whole program I put together, I still have the same problems. In some respects, they've gotten worse, but I'm pretty much symptom free 90 to 95% of the time.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:57:18] Okay. And I'd like to circle back to something you raised, which was that

Andrew Ainsworth [00:57:25] you

Andrew Ainsworth [00:57:25] were really struck by how you were able to accomplish the results that basically you were able to accomplish with over three years of meditation, something that you had not been able to accomplish through 30 years of Mormonism. And I'm imagining that had to. There had to be moments when you realized that and you tried to make sense of that, that you found in meditation and in these Eastern paths, the means to accomplish the goals that Mormonism had helped you set. Could you explain to Us a little bit of what your thoughts were about that or how you reconciled that if you were able to.

Phil McLemore [00:58:14] Yeah. What dawned on me as I sat back and tried to imagine

Andrew Ainsworth [00:58:21] how this

Phil McLemore [00:58:22] had happened, what I began to realize was that meditation, properly understood and properly practiced is really the essence of true prayer. Most people's prayers are mental exercises. They're extensions of their ego trying to work out needs and problems with their lives, looking for, for supernatural help. They tend not to be spirit to spirit communion with the divine or with God. And what dawned on me is the way that I was practicing meditation. I had a settled body, I had a settled mind, and it had evolved into truly a spirit to spirit communication. And when you spend time in the presence of pure spirit, when you spend time in the presence of God, what naturally happens is those things within you that are contrary to his character and nature and frankly contrary to the essence of your own inner being, those things begin to weaken and dissolve and break up and to fade away. And the things that are in harmony with the nature and character of God, which are also in harmony and nature with the character of your inner essence of being, those things are nourished and strengthened and just begin to naturally unfold. So it's just a very natural process of divine nature awakening and unfolding and things that are ungodly losing their strength and fading away. There's a purification of the subconscious mind that takes place over years of meditation. And what unfolds is Christlike nature, divine nature?

Andrew Ainsworth [01:00:21] And did you ever find yourself wondering, see, I'm trying to figure out who the prophet would have been. I guess it would have been President Hinckley. Did you ever find yourself wondering why, if this is true, if this is good, if this helps me develop Christlike qualities, why am I not hearing about this at general Conference? Why are there not less gospel doctrine and gospel principles lessons dedicated to this? Why is this something that I basically had to go outside of Mormonism to discover in order to help me accomplish the goals that Mormonism had helped me set?

Phil McLemore [01:01:08] Yeah, I'm actually challenged with that question in my meditation seminars quite regularly by LDS folks. It did create a crisis for me. I did sit down one day and I thought, wow, I did think 30 years of Mormonism, seriously, full time. I mean by desire and it is my work, I have to say Mormonism took a confused, not sure what to do with his life, 19 year old boy and put him on a mature, stable life path. I mean, at that point in my life, Mormonism was saving because of the tremendous improvement that resulted from age 19 to say, age 25. But what wasn't happening was this inner spiritual rebirth, this inner spiritual transformation. And for me to literally in 3 years experience all the goals that I had set, that I imagined was possible from a Mormon point of view, to just happen from three years of meditation. I then had to sit back and ask myself the question, who am I? Am I a Mormon guy or am I a yogi guy? And it did present a bit of a crisis for a year or so.

Andrew Ainsworth [01:02:42] And so when you say it was a crisis for a year or so, I guess that means you did finally come to resolve it. If so, how?

Phil McLemore [01:02:50] Well, the resolution, As a matter of fact, the article I wrote, the Yoga of Christ, came out of that resolution. By this time, I had retired from the Air Force. I was working as a hospice chaplain, as I am now. And during all of my free time, I'm doing yogic spiritual disciplines, meditation, yoga and other things. I'm reading ancient yoga scriptures, I'm reading the teachings of ancient and modern day yogis. I mean, that's my study and reading. But during the daytime I was reading from the New Testament to my hospice patients because they're almost all either Latter Day Saint or Christian. So I had these two things happening at the same time. And the moment of illumination is when I was reading in Matthew chapter 11, where Jesus says, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden. I haven't got it in front of me to read, but. And I will give you rest, learn of me, for I'm meek and lowly in heart. Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. You will find rest unto your souls. Well, I knew from my yoga studies that that word yoke comes from the Sanskrit word yug, which is also the same word that the word yoga comes from. And in my mind I translated this as Jesus saying, practice my yoga and your burden will be light and you'll find rest unto your souls. And really almost immediately, the New Testament was transformed for me. All of the stories, the parables, the teachings of Jesus all of a sudden took on a richness and a deep significance that I had never seen before. I saw the core meaning of these teachings to be in harmony with what I was studying in yoga philosophy and in the yogic scriptures. And I realized at that moment that the teachings of Jesus are richer and deeper than I had ever imagined. That at the core level, there's really no conflict here, that I can be a disciple of Jesus, I can be a follower of Jesus and not have to lose or give up any of what might be considered to be the Eastern spiritual practices that I had adopted. So it just all came together for me at that moment. So this whole idea of yoga of Christ really symbolizes this reconciliation of both sides of that for me.

Guest [01:05:57] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories Podcast. To discuss this podcast with others, please check us out@mormonstories.org to keep the podcast alive or to join our support community, please consider a tax deductible donation today@mormonstories.org music for this podcast was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. The Mormon Stories logo was generously provided by students. Studiocase.com thank you for listening. Still all my songs shall be nearer my go to.

Phil McLemore [01:06:49] Nearer to the.

What Meditation Really Is and Its Origins

Part 2 of 4 · Ep. 247

Andrew Ainsworth [00:00:01] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org

Andrew Ainsworth [00:00:24] so Phil, why don't you Before I get you started talking about meditation, I thought I better make something very clear up front for our listeners, many of whom may not be familiar with meditation in the Eastern sense of the word. I know in the Western sense of the word, we use the word meditation to mean to think deeply about, to ponder something. We might even use that in our church services or in spiritual discussions, we Mormons. But when we talk about meditating about something, it seems like we really use that as a synonym for pondering, to simply think deeply about something. And when you think about where Mormons might practice meditation, or at least the Western definition or meaning of meditation, we might think about sacrament meeting, where we're supposed to be thinking deeply about the Savior. And we might consider that to be meditation, really pondering, thinking about the Savior. We might think about meditation occurring in the celestial room in the temples when we are wanting to commune with God. And there that again, that word meditation might mean to us a deep prayerful attitude, maybe a very intimate dialogue with God. But maybe you can help us understand what does meditate and what does meditation mean in the Eastern context that we're going to be talking about.

Phil McLemore [00:02:10] Sure, I think you're exactly right. I think many folks, particularly in the church, see meditation as deep thinking, careful thought about spiritual or significant things. And in the pure sense of meditation, meditation is awareness beyond thought. So if you're thinking even though it's careful pondering kinds of things and there's an appropriate place for that, then that's not really meditation and it's not really transformative. For a person to experience what I would call transformative spiritual growth, where there is a purification of the subconscious and the elimination of obstacles to soul nature unfolding, you have to be able to rest in a state of higher awareness that is above thought, that is beyond thought. Some people think they're meditating if they get into a semi hypnotic trance, that's actually a state of awareness below thought. And although it has benefits as far as stress reduction and relaxation and just kind of tuning out from problems, that again doesn't result in spiritual awakening or spiritual transformation. So meditation in its truest sense is pure conscious awakened spiritual awareness that is above thought, beyond thought. Thought is a very limiting form of perception.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:04:00] Okay.

Phil McLemore [00:04:01] And

Andrew Ainsworth [00:04:04] before we go and talk about exactly how we arrive at that state of mind, which I think many of our listeners who are unfamiliar with meditation will have even a difficult time grasping the concept of what you're talking about. Before we circle back to that, let's talk a little bit about where does meditation come from in the Eastern sense? What traditions or schools of thought really gave birth to the Eastern practice of meditation?

Phil McLemore [00:04:43] Well, it came from India, and some people don't even realize that Buddhism originally started in India. But what happened was thousands of years ago there were these ancient sages, seers, and their goal was to try and understand the nature of reality, understand the nature of what we would call God, to understand their inner essence of being. And in an effort to try to figure that out, they came up with a, a process that is referred to as self inquiry. They learned very quickly that it was very difficult to determine. Let's say, for example, let's say you're trying to determine who am I or what am I? What is the essence of my nature, the essence of my being. Well, they learned very quickly that it was difficult to just simply figure that out, to reason that out. They could tell they didn't have the capability to do that. But what they did learn, also learn very quickly was it was very easy to discern what they were not. And so they started this, this process that's called self inquiry. And it's a very helpful spiritual practice to do before meditation or before, you know, you start a meditative discipline. And it's simply asking these sorts of questions. Am I the body? Am I my body? And it doesn't take very long, it doesn't take much pondering to figure out that I'm not my body. If I am the body, which one AM I? The three year old body or the 60 year old body? Those are very, very different bodies. It's obvious that my body is changing. It changes dramatically, but I'm still here. If you cut somebody's arm off, are they suddenly 10 or 15% less there? Well, no. I mean, if you feel 15% less there, that's a psychological issue. You're still clearly intact. And, and so it doesn't take much thought to discern that I'm really something other than just my body. Well, then they move this inquiry into thoughts and emotions. Am I my thinking? And that's where frankly, most people are. Most people really believe they are the mental activity that goes on in their head because they're so closely identified with it and the emotions that flow from that, well, if you could slow your mind down and just grab one thought out, it's obvious that every thought has a beginning, it has a middle, and it has an end, and it's replaced by another thought. The same is true with emotions. And it became very obvious to them that, well, I can't be my thoughts because thoughts are coming and going and I'm here observing them. And they came to one of the core philosophical tenets of yogic philosophy, which is, if I can observe it, I am not it. So if I can observe my body, if I can observe my thoughts, if I can observe my emotions, then obviously I'm something that's connected with this capability of observation. I'm not the thing that I am observing. So this is pretty much how this process of self inquiry unfolded. And if you sit down and do that, and if you realize, okay, I'm not the body, and you kind of discard your sense of self from your body, and you realize, I'm not the thinking that's going on in my head and I'm not the emotions that come and go. And if you even think about your personality characteristics, they change. Sometimes you'll pick up a way of laughing that a friend laughs that way. And you find yourself doing that five years later. And it's a part of your personality. I mean, it's obviously baggage. And when you start subtracting body, thought, emotion, personality characteristics, you see what's left? That's the question. What's left? And what's left is your soul. What's left is your spirit. What's left is your essence of being. And you begin to realize that, wow, I spend so little time being aware of that part of me that is really me. All my time is lost in the needs and desires of the body and the functions of my mind and emotion and the interplay of my personality with other personalities. And you suddenly realize, I spend most of my life interacting with. With things that really aren't a part of my essential nature.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:10:14] So it sounds like you draw a distinction between the observed and the observer. Any of those things that can be observed, like the body, the thoughts, emotions, that's not you, that the real you is the observer that's observing in all those things. Is that right?

Phil McLemore [00:10:35] That's exactly right.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:10:37] So it sounds like what you're saying is that if there's this observer, if we can use an analogy, watching a television show, and that television show is all of their thoughts and all their emotions that the problem is that it's like the person forgetting that he's sitting on the couch watching the television show and being so engrossed with the thoughts and emotions on TV that he starts to think he is the television show.

Phil McLemore [00:11:08] Well, I mean, I've had this experience. I think everybody's had this experience. You get so engrossed in the movie, it just grabs you in some way. You suddenly find yourself in body, in thought and emotion, completely wrapped up in this movie. And the truth is, our lives, as we experience them, are just a big movie.

Hindu Yogic Tradition and the Nature of Mind

Andrew Ainsworth [00:11:37] And so help us tie in, help us understand how this ties in, then, with the concept of meditation.

Phil McLemore [00:11:45] Meditation is the discipline that allows you to withdraw your attention and awareness from your body and the sensations of the body, from the thoughts in your mind, from the emotions related to those thoughts and the sensations in the body, to the images in your mind, the stories in your head about who you think you are. It's the discipline of withdrawing from all of that and beginning to experience yourself in a state of pure spiritual perception, to be able to experience the essence of your being, the essence of your soul, nature, and with the objective of ultimately transferring your identity from the movie to your real essence of being. And in yogic philosophy, and I believe it's. I mean, the gospel is taught in a variety of different ways, but I would say the gospel also would teach that the essence of your being is good. It's created in the image of God. The qualities of divinity are a part of the nature of our soul. And so to the extent that you can begin to identify with that which is really you, essentially you, which you discover within yourself, is what Jesus referred to as the kingdom of God. Where is the kingdom? It's within you. So you begin to find within yourself joy, peace, an ability to love. My wife says to me, you're patient all of a sudden. How did that happen? Well, I was looking for patience outside of myself. I was setting a goal, hoping that Heavenly Father would bless me with patience, as if he was going to pick it up at Walmart on the way to my house to give it to me. And what I discovered was that patience was a quality of my own soul that was already there. And so by allowing that to unfold, by spending time in meditation, that which I had desired became manifest because it was always there.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:13:59] Interesting. And I think it's worth noting here that these. You call them sages in India, just basically these wise men. It really sounds like we're looking at when humankind first began to develop psychology that it's when the human mind started looking at itself in the mirror and realizing that it existed and trying to figure it out. Where did it go from there? Where did meditation spread to? You mentioned it started in India. So I'm assuming that this is where with basically in Hinduism. Is that right?

Phil McLemore [00:14:47] Yeah, I mean, Hinduism is a huge umbrella. It encompasses many spiritual and religious practices, many cultural practices. It is a mammoth study, so to speak. And there are many, many, many. I mean, there are thousands of different spiritual traditions encompassed by the term Hinduism.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:15:16] My understanding is that the word Hindu just derives from the word Indus, the Indus river being basically where Indian civilization began, Is that right?

Phil McLemore [00:15:27] That's correct. Well, unfortunately, as in any spiritual tradition, once it becomes organized, then there are certain psychological and social things that evolve where people get into power positions and then to maintain power they act in certain ways and then the essence of what the tradition was about gets lost. And then there's all of a sudden an interplay of orthodoxy and power structure. Buddhism has given birth because this person we refer to as the Buddha, which means the Awakened one, he realized that the religious leaders of his day were acting out of character, that the priests were corrupt, that they were concealing from people the teachings of spiritual life and spiritual awakening, which in his mind should be offered freely to all and not be sold or held back. And so he essentially was a thorn in the side to the Hindu leadership of his day. And upon his death, Hinduism, pardon me, Buddhism was essentially flushed out of India. It was a power struggle. And of course Buddhism then spread to China and Japan and Korea and all the places where it's prominent now. But all of this started in India.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:17:10] So it might be fair to say that Buddha was for Hinduism, who Jesus was for Judaism, that they were both reformers and that they then that their followers then began an entirely new religion. The followers of Jesus becoming Christians and the followers of Buddha, who were formerly Hindus becoming Buddhists. Is that right?

Phil McLemore [00:17:41] Yeah, generally speaking. And of course it didn't take many years after Buddha's death before his disciples started arguing about how things should be done. And of course that fragmented into the various forms and schools of Buddhism that we have around the planet. So he would be horrified, frankly.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:17:59] So it sounds like we've got this core of wisdom and spiritual insight in Hinduism and Buddhism with a pretty thick overlay of man made additions and the corruption and unfortunately perverse incentives it's created when any sort of good idea becomes institutionalized.

Phil McLemore [00:18:24] Right. And in the history of yoga and we really haven't defined that most People think of Hatha yoga, which is this, you know, these physical postures and routines that are done for balance and flexibility and strength. I mean, that's just a very small portion of the whole yogic system. The word yoga itself means union. The implication is union with God, union of the soul with spirit. And it refers to the state of yoga or the state of enlightenment or awakened spiritual awareness, which results from union with God. And it also refers to the disciplines and the teachings and the path that lead one to that union.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:19:13] So yoga is more than stretching is what you're saying, properly understood?

Phil McLemore [00:19:18] Yeah, it's a whole lifestyle and it's a very, in some respects, because there are many different traditions and emphases, it's a very varied and complex sort of thing. But the objective is always self understanding, self awareness and union with God or existence or reality. That's the ultimate objective. I actually forgot we were beheaded with this. I got sidetracked.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:19:50] Well, I'll help you out. That's what I'm here for. So I understand that meditation is a common practice both in Hinduism and Buddhism and all their different permutations. And so that's a commonality. And that from Hinduism and Buddhism there have arisen several different types of meditation. And why don't you just give us a thumbnail sketch of the major types of meditation practice there are.

Types of Meditation in Hinduism and Buddhism

Phil McLemore [00:20:34] Oh boy.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:20:36] Maybe I'll help you out. Yeah, if you could help, if you could walk us through just again, just 30,000 foot level mindfulness meditation, mantra based meditation, that sort of thing.

Phil McLemore [00:20:50] Yeah, I started with mindfulness meditation. It's a wonderful practice. The idea is learning to do things consciously, learning to observe things in a fully conscious way, learning to refine your powers of observation and attention, and learning how to connect simple activities with a deeper spiritual reality. So most meditative practices work with breath at some level or at some point. Most initial practices begin with observation of one's breath because you want your breath to be settled. There's a relationship between the quality of breath and what's happening in your mind. If your breath is unsettled, your mind's going to be unstable. So most meditation practices will begin with a stabilizing and settling of diaphragmatic breathing in a nice gentle way. It's just one way of settling and calming the mind so it's easier to still. Mindfulness meditation extends even to activities. I mean, you can do walking meditations where as you're walking, you learn to be mindful of the movement of your body. In other words, you sense very profoundly how your body feels, what sensations are going on, a lot of meditation. We talked earlier about vipassana meditation, where you're observing the thoughts and sensations and emotions that might be flowing through your body and mind, but being able to witness them without becoming involved in them. These are different forms of meditation that are designed to increase awareness so that when you make choices, when you interact with people, when you make decisions, you're developing a skill and an ability to be thoughtful, to be mindful, to do, to think, act in the way that you really want to, and not from patterns or conditioning.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:23:28] And so in mindfulness meditation, the focus is on your breathing. Then you're seated comfortably, your eyes are closed, and you try to focus your mind on nothing other than your breathing. Is that correct?

Phil McLemore [00:23:50] Yeah, that's the way most meditation starts. Because again, you want a settled breath to have a settled mind. Some people can do activities mindfully. My wife is an expert at performing activities in a mindful way. So she can do chores around the house. She can. We have chickens and rabbits and dogs that we care for her. Animal care is a spiritual practice for her because she cares for these animals in a focused, mindful way. In other words, full attention, not lost in thought, not aware of something else, not wanting to be somewhere else, but deeply rooted in the present moment. Something we haven't talked about is the way the mind functions and the way thought patterns develop. We tend to spend most of our time in the past and in the future. In our thinking, we ruminate over things that have happened in the past. We're pretty much dictated by this dualism of pleasure and pain. So we think about things that were painful. And then we project into the future how we're going to avoid that. And we remember things that were pleasurable. And we project into the future how we're going to maximize that. And our thoughts go back and forth in that sort of fashion. And anything that's conceptual in your head that's related to past and future has nothing to do with reality. It's a movie. And it's either memory or it's fantasy and spirit. You know, we talk about God living in an eternal now. Spirit is a present moment reality. You can only experience spirit consciously if you are in the present moment. So if you can, let's say, care for. I'm going to use my wife as an example. If she can care for a sick rabbit sitting on her lap, she's feeding it, she's giving it medicine, she's stroking it, she's doing it with such intense present Moment awareness, it becomes a spiritual experience because she's connecting in the present moment to the reality of life. And so that activity becomes spiritually nourishing and to some degree, spiritually awakening. And that's the essence of mindfulness.

Mindfulness Meditation and Spiritual Awareness

Andrew Ainsworth [00:26:39] Yeah. You know, mindfulness is a word that I know. For me, I had never heard of the word mindfulness. I think, until I picked up. I think the first book Eastern thought that I read was the Upanishad, some old Hindu scripture. And I think whoever the editor was who did commentary would talk about mindfulness. It seemed like such an awkward word to be mindful. I had no way of understanding what that means. But to see if I can summarize correctly for our listeners, it sounds like being mindful means not being lost in thought, not daydreaming, not letting your mind escape and wander away from the present moment, where it's agonizing about the past or worrying about the future, but to be fully focused, aware and present on the present moment. And that that sort of activity, that when your mind is focused on the present, which is the only physical reality, because as you pointed out, the past doesn't physically exist anymore, the future doesn't physically exist, yet the only thing that really exists is the present. And so when our mind is focused on the present, we are in a mindful state. Is that correct?

Phil McLemore [00:28:08] That's correct. And you are in touch with reality, not a conceptual reality in your head. So that was very nicely explained.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:28:18] Okay. And so if mindfulness is the goal of mindfulness meditation, bringing back in the concept of focusing our attention on our breath, I heard something interesting recently that the word respiration for breathing, also the same root in the word spirit and in inspiration.

Phil McLemore [00:28:46] That's correct.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:28:47] That the concept of spirit, spirituality, inspiration, the etymology of those words, it comes from the root for breathing. So words came from somewhere. And it seems like at some point early on, the whole concept of spirit spirituality inspiration was linked with the breath. Is that right?

Phil McLemore [00:29:14] Yes. Spirit has always been linked with breath. The word spirit and breath, as I understand it, in Hebrew and in Greek is the same word. And when Jesus, for example, if you ask the average Mormon, how did Jesus give his disciples the Holy Ghost, nine out of ten will say by the laying on of hands. But if you look in John 20, if my memory is correct, he breathed on them when he gave them the spirit. I mean, it's a very profound thing. At our physical creation, as is described in Genesis, God breathes into us or puts into us our spirit. Those two things are linked. And so here's Jesus now initiating spiritual rebirth, and he does it by breathing on them. So spirit has always been linked with breath. It's a great place to start a meditation practice. And it's because the goal of meditation is to move from the. The grosser material states of awareness to more subtle and ultimately pure spiritual awareness. Breath is in between those. So if you can move your attention and awareness, do you see into your breath? It's more subtle than the material realm. And you're starting that process of moving to more subtle states of awareness.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:30:51] Yeah. And so in our breathing, again, if our object is to be focused on the present moment, the fact that you and I and our listeners are breathing right now is a great reminder that we're alive here in the present moment, that that's what enables us to be alive. And so by focusing on our breath. This is the way I explained it to my daughters recently. Kind of circling back to the point you made about our minds liking to wander off into the past and into the future. I said, imagine if you had a television set that when you put it on a channel, it would just randomly skip around, you know, forward 10 channels, back 20 channels and was bouncing all around and wouldn't just stay on one channel. I mean, that sort of a television you would say was broken, was useless, was a piece of junk, and you'd throw it away. And yet how much our minds act very much like that sort of a television that won't just stay on one channel. And so I told my daughters that the whole point of mindfulness meditation is to train our minds to stay on one channel. So that that way, instead of our thoughts controlling us, we control our thoughts. We put the remote in our hands and we decide what our mind is allowed to think about when. Is that a good summary?

Phil McLemore [00:32:38] That's a great summary. Eckhart Tolle, in his book Power of Now, gives the example. Assuming that you've been on a street in a big city and you observe what appears to be a mentally ill person walking by you, and they're just babbling, they're talking out loud, and nothing makes any sense, and it's just a rambling of random thoughts. And he points out the fact that if you put a speaker in somebody's ear where everyone could hear your thoughts, it would sound exactly the same way. That's the way our mind works. It's a hodgepodge of random thoughts just circling around. And the sad thing is, because our most basic instincts are survival, whether it's physical or psychological, our thoughts instinctively tend to be survival in nature, they tend to be negative in that sense and they tend to be fear based. And so you wonder why there's dis ease discomfort when you don't have management of your thinking processes.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:33:49] Interesting. And so that's an interesting example. We would call that craziness, right? We would call that insanity. Someone walking along, you know, babbling to themselves and yet that sort of insanity or craziness. I guess what Tol is saying is going on in our heads. And it kind of sounds like again, turning back to the television analogy, as if the television show that pops into our head is a really graphic, violent horror show. In other words, something that's just not really healthy to be thinking about. And so the idea is to learn how to turn that negative channel off. Is that right?

Phil McLemore [00:34:39] Well, yeah. I mean, if you could, I mean you can do this. If you can just sit quietly and observe your own thoughts. It's going to sound like the crazy person on the street. I mean, that's what's going on in our heads. The fact that we grab onto a particular logical train of thought and get that together and then communicate it in some way. Well, that's nice. But what's going on most of the time is this ramble and it's ultimately disturbing to the nervous system.

Mantra Meditation Explained

Andrew Ainsworth [00:35:17] Okay, so I think we've covered mindfulness meditation. At least a little thumbnail sketch of it. Why don't you talk about. And you mentioned that this is a good place for meditators to start, is to start by trying to first develop the capacity to be mindful of, to bring our minds, our attention to the present, to train our minds to block out the past and the future, and to stay on one channel. Once someone has developed a good capacity for mindfulness. What is another sort of meditation or type of meditation that's good to graduate to you? You mentioned mantra based meditation. Would now be an appropriate time to discuss that?

Phil McLemore [00:36:16] Well, sure. I'm definitely not an expert in all forms of meditation. And people have done amazing things just with attention on their breath as far as purifying their minds and subconscious and opening themselves up to spiritual awareness. I like mantra meditation because it's a more subtle form that can lead you into higher states of awareness, I believe a little more quickly. The objective in you certainly want to have a relaxed diaphragmatic breath going as a baseline. So I always, I mean, after my devotional practices and prayer and so forth, I always have a little bit of attention on my breath. And a mantra meditation, you're Simply whether one has been given to you or whether you select it yourself. A mantra is simply a word or a phrase or a sound that is used to focus your awareness and attention. Because if you can't develop your ability to concentrate, you're never going to be able to meditate. A lot of what people call meditation is really concentration. So in mantra meditation, a word or two words or a phrase is chosen that inspires you, or it's uplifting to you, or it's a sound that causes your mind not to be distracted, whatever the purpose is. And you begin repeating this sound in your mind. And the discipline here is to hold your attention fully and completely on that sound. I normally teach it in a way where people link a sound with their breath. So there's a sound on inhalation, a sound on exhalation, and to get it where those two things flow as if they're one thing. And then what happens is the breath should start becoming so subtle, it'll take energy to maintain awareness on your breath. And you don't want that. So you let the breath go. And now your attention is simply on the sound, the repetition of the sound in your mind. The word mantra comes from the word mind and device, or mind and tool, the root words. And the implication is that a mantra is a device of the mind to transcend the mind. So you're using the mind to transcend the mind, and mantra meditation is a way of doing that. So at first, At least in my case, I was holding on to this mantra pretty tightly because my attention was easily distracted. If you're agitated, if you got stuff going on in your life, if there's physical distress, emotional psychological distress, relationship problems, then your mind's agitated. It's hard to concentrate, it's hard to focus. So that's the discipline at first. You absolutely have to learn how to focus your attention and learn to concentrate, or you'll never be able to experience meditation. The advantage of the mantra is it is even sound is even more subtle than breath. So as subtle as breath is, you can hear somebody breathing. You can put a stethoscope on there and hear the breath. You can't hear a sound being repeated in somebody's head. And the other nice thing about sound is, as your power of concentration develops and you're able to hold your attention on that mantra, you can begin letting the mantra fade in your awareness. So rather than having to repeat it constantly in your mind, you now start listening to it. See, listening to it is more subtle than generating it. And so you now start listening to this mantra, and if you can keep your attention focused on it, then you start allowing it to fade. Well, what's happening is you're establishing one pointed or single pointed awareness, which, interestingly Enough, in the 88 section of the Doctrine and Covenants, we're told that if we have our mind single, a single mind to the glory of God, then sanctification takes place. And that's exactly what happens. You have brought your mind to a single focal point of attention. That single point now is the only barrier between you and pure spiritual awareness. So the goal is to ultimately let the mantra lead you into pure consciousness, pure awareness. You let it fade and fade and fade until it finally fades away. And then you find yourself in a state of pure consciousness, of pure spiritual awareness. You don't have body consciousness and awareness. Your thoughts have now been surrendered and you are now able to rest, to commune in the presence of the Lord.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:41:40] Could you give us an example then? It might be difficult to do, but in your own personal practice, can you give us some examples of mantras that you might use and exactly give us a demonstration of how you would use them, syncing it up with your breathing. Again, just for our listeners who are new to the concept of meditation, the whole idea being, and I guess we can put it in the LDS lingo that you used, helping you have an eye, single to something, to have a single point of focus, and thereby gaining mastery over our minds, being able to control our minds, which then allows us to commune with true spirituality. But give us a demonstration, if you will, of using a mantra.

Phil McLemore [00:42:34] Okay. In some yoga traditions, it's believed that a guru has to give you a mantra, that it's sacredly empowered and it will work better. I don't know that that's necessarily true. Frankly, any phrase or sound that's inspiring to you can be used as a mantra. For years, I used a Sanskrit mantra that was given to me as a part of Deepak Chopra's program. It was very effective. Later, years into my meditation, I had a mantra that was self manifesting. That kind of represented my development of, of yoga with Christian discipleship. But just an example, I give people the option of be still. There's that verse in Psalm 46:10 that summarizes this whole thing. Be still and know that I am God. Well, it's obvious in scriptural teaching that the objective of all spiritual disciplines is to ultimately know God. Not know about God, but to have intimate personal knowledge through communion with God, and that that knowledge is sanctifying and Transforming. What's the key to gaining that knowing? It's stillness. Well, it's obviously not talking about stillness of the body, or half of the army would be enlightened after a day of standing at attention. So it's clearly talking about stilling the mind, which is the core discipline of meditation. And it is in the stillness of that mind that this spiritual knowledge unfolds. So, heck, why not take this phrase, be still and know that I am God? The most simple way to do this is just to use those words, be still. It still has the meaning in your awareness that I'm being still to know God. So just the use of those words provides a wonderful intent and purpose for your meditation. It is spiritual in nature, and I'm seeking God, and I'm seeking a deeper understanding of myself. So I would teach a person to, when they inhale, to establish themselves in a nice, slow, gentle, diaphragmatic breath. When they inhale in their mind, they say the word be. And when they exhale in their mind, they say the word still. So the words be still become intimately associated with inhalation and exhalation. And that just continues. Now, I've had some people worry about this business of vain repetition. The key word here is vain. There's nothing vain about any of this. You're calming and stilling the mind for the purpose of communing with God. There's not a vain thing about this. And you need that repetition to still this menagerie of thoughts that's always circulating. So you spend 10, 15, 20 minutes repeating this sound linked with your breath. And again, at some point, you let the breath go and you're just simply repeating this mantra, be still, in your mind. And you know, it might take weeks, it might take a couple of months, but at some point you're going to find that, let's say in the course of 20 minutes, when you first start your mind, you find yourself lost in thought a hundred times. I mean, that can be very frustrating, and you feel like you're failing in some way. But the discipline is to gently and patiently just return to the mantra. If you're lost in thought, you just patiently come back to that mantra and you just stick with that. And guess what? Next week you're only distracted 80 times, and the following week it's 60 times. And you'll get to a point where you can hold your attention on the mantra for 20 minutes and maybe only be distracted three or four times. I mean, that's miraculous. I mean, that is an amazing thing. Now, you might Think this is slow progress, but the whole time that you're doing this, stress chemicals are being reduced, your nervous system is being calmed, your immune system is actually being strengthened, the aging process is slowing down, and your ability to ultimately experience your essence of being is unfolding. So even though you might not think there's much going on, there is a tremendous amount going on that maybe you're not aware of at the moment. And once you can hold your attention on that mantra, only being occasionally distracted, then you start letting that thing fade and letting that thing lead you into. Into a state of higher consciousness. In other words, the whole idea is not a blank mind and a stuporous trance. The idea is awakened awareness, enlightened awareness, awareness above and beyond thought.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:48:08] And so if I can just summarize for the listeners, it sounds like there's no belief that these mantras are magic words. There's no hocus pocus associated with them. Basically, the mantra is simply the purpose of it is to provide something to focus on. And that by focusing on the mantra, whatever it may be, and learning to focus on that and keep out the distractions that try to get our mind to wander away, that we're able to develop this capacity to overcome the distracting influence of our thoughts and our emotions, to no longer be caught up in our thoughts and emotions, which oftentimes are very negative, which, as you point out, are insubstantial, are not real insofar as they have to do with the present. Sorry, with the past or the future. Is that a fair summary there?

Phil McLemore [00:49:23] Yeah. Now, to be fair, that is a very effective use of mantra. Now, the truth is, in most yoga traditions, there are mantras that are believed to have certain capacities and powers and abilities.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:49:41] Interesting.

Phil McLemore [00:49:42] In some of those traditions, it is clearly superstitious. However, there are certain. In many yoga traditions, mine in particular, the yoga tradition I'm a part of, in particular, there are certain mantras that are believed to be able to assist, to clear energy, negative energy within your system, to purify the nervous system, to awaken certain spiritual forces and energies, not in a magic kind of way, but in a way that a vibration assists the purifying and cleansing of the nervous system and brain. So you're more capable of spiritual perception. Now, you don't have to get into any or all of that. You can use mantra, as I just simply explained it, for the purpose of concentration. What I didn't explain is that meditation isn't something that you make happen. It's not something that you can do. What you can do is learn how to concentrate and to open your awareness to spiritual perception. Meditation is actually a process that flows spontaneously when you attain a certain state of concentration. And you'll sense when meditation flows, it is a flow of grace. It's a flow of God's love. And grace is what it is. And what will happen is that your awareness and attention will naturally flow toward that and with that. And that's when you are actually in meditation. And it's that process that is transformative and ultimately leads you into this state of yoga or union with God.

The Concept of Awakening in Meditation

Andrew Ainsworth [00:51:48] Okay, And I'd like to channel our discussion now onto the concept of awakening, which is something you discuss in your Mormon Mantras essay. If I'm not mistaken, the word Buddha means enlightened one, and that another way to translate enlightened is enlightenment, or to be enlightened is to be awake. And so can you help bring us from this concept of mindfulness, then, to this concept of becoming awakened through meditative practice, which of course implies that we are all, before we engage in meditative practice, in a state of slumber, that we're asleep. Can you explain those concepts to us? Because they're very important in meditative practice.

Phil McLemore [00:52:50] They are. And frankly, lest I be too narrow, it's not all about Hinduism and Buddhism or yoga and Buddhism. There are other traditions around, spiritual traditions around the planet who have established meditative practices. And there's a whole dimension, a whole range of Christian mysticism that has a rich tradition of meditative practices. But whether you're talking Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or any others, all of the scriptures and all of the teachings in any of these mystical or meditative traditions deal with this business of being awake or being asleep. You can read that in the Book of Mormon or even the Doctrine and Covenants. Those concepts are in there. What does it mean to be asleep? It means you are lost in that which is ultimately not real. You're lost in the movie. You're lost in the story in your head about what you think the world and reality is about. The other thing you're lost in is conditioned perception, thought, emotion, and behavior. I've spent years asking large groups of people to ponder the question, what percent of your perceptions, thoughts, reactions to those thoughts and perceptions and behaviors are the result of. Of conscious, aware, decision making? And how much of that what percent is related to just patterns, scripting, conditioning, reactions? And I've. Although you'll have one or two people that will try to argue, you know, they have 50 or more percent conscious awareness. What amazes me is that most people, when they ponder that, realize very quickly that most of their perceptions and the responses of their perceptions, frankly, are patterns. They're patterns that are established and have been established in their lives since they were very young. And people who study this will tell you that 90 to 95% of our perceptions and our responses to what we perceived are, in fact, conditioned responses. So I do marriage counseling for 20 years. I have couples that come to see me with pure intent. They're willing to do all the homework I've asked them to do. They want to be better spouses. They want to be better parents. We start the work and, you know, they'll make some improvements. And those improvements will last for two or three days. And then they'll come back the next week and report, I don't know what happened. We did the same thing again. You know, we fought about the same stuff the same way again. You know, what's going on? Well, what's going on is people are stuck in their conditioned patterns. And one of the reasons that counseling and psychotherapy is notoriously has low rates of success, let me say that, because people rarely, if ever, break out outside of their conditioning. And that, scripturally speaking, is being asleep. Now, in the church, we talk a lot about using our free agency. Well, if only 5 to 10% of your perception and thought and emotion and behavior is free and available for you to use consciously, you don't have much free agency. I think rather than talking about using our free agency, we need to be talking about how do I expand my free agency. And that's one of the things that meditative disciplines and practices do. They break up these condition patterns. They allow the brain to work more freely, more consciously, more aware, so that you see things differently, you see things more clearly, you think about them more broadly and clearly. Your reactions are more measured and more reflective of your inner nature. And so you find yourself thinking and desiring and acting in a way that's in harmony with your own soul, that's in harmony with the nature of God and the way you really want to live. That's freedom. That's awakening. That's liberation. And that's what this core discipline of meditation is all about. It's about assisting this process of awakening.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:57:48] So it sounds like a synonym for awakening here can be liberation. And that a synonym for being asleep is enslavement. That we're basically trapped and limited by our reflexive, conditioned responses to situations in life. That rather than actually acting in a very careful, deliberate, voluntary way that we're often Blurting things out or reacting in a somewhat involuntary way based our. Based on our conditioning. Is that right?

Phil McLemore [00:58:31] Absolutely. That's the experience of most people. And that's why relationship work is so difficult.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:58:39] And so how does meditation, then? How is that a tool or a method of achieving this liberation or this awakening?

Phil McLemore [00:58:56] Well, it's because your soul is free. I mean, within each person is the nature of God, and that nature is unbounded and unlimited. It is not restrictive and narrow like ordinary human perception and thought. The problem is we identify ourselves with our perceptions and with our thoughts and with the personalities that develop around that. And so we live in a very narrow, restricted point of view. So to suddenly be able to shift your identity from that to this infinite nature of your own being opens up a world of possibilities. And what happens again in this meditative process is the purifying of your subconscious. So much of these patterns are a result of what's happening subconsciously. So to have the structure of the brain refined and purified, to have the subconscious purified, to have your identity shifted to the infinite nature of the soul, which is which nature is goodness and joy and love and peace is transforming. It's liberating, and it allows you to live with awareness, with consciousness.

Andrew Ainsworth [01:00:30] Okay, and let's circle back here to the concept of mantras, because I'd like now to discuss picking back up our discussion of your essay, Mormon Mantras. And you explained earlier how the word mantra literally means mind tool. And so these mantras are tools for helping us shape our minds. You point out in your essay that mantras exist all around us, and unfortunately, they're not always healthy. That we've got some positive, helpful mantras, but that we also have plenty of negative, harmful mantras as well. You then went into a discussion of how when you discovered this concept of mantras, you. How it gave you a new perspective from which you could view your experience within Mormonism, and that you began to notice that within Mormonism we have certain mantras. And so why don't you discuss that a bit for us? What were some of the mantras that you noticed we have within Mormonism?

Phil McLemore [01:02:02] Well, yeah, in some respects, this is kind of a play on words. You know, a meditation mantra is a particular device used to refine people's concentration so they can have the experience of meditation. We also use the word mantra in our culture to refer to slogans or catchphrases that people use to structure their thoughts. And I just began, for whatever reason, one day I just started becoming aware of what I was calling Mormon mantras. They are the catchphrases that provide structure and unity in our subculture of Mormonism. And as I began to listen and record these mantras, then I began wondering, are these helpful to spiritual awakening or are these harmful? Affirmations could be looked at as a form of mantra. And a lot of people do affirmation work, which can be really helpful. Using affirmations is a way of trying to structure the subconscious so that you perceive and react in a different way. I would probably say that although that's helpful, it's probably a little more laborious and difficult road than the transformation that takes place once somebody can establish a good meditative practice that probably does more to purify and restructure the subconscious than the work of affirmations. But I think it is important to have an awareness of what are the mantras in my own mind. What are the mantras in my culture and subculture, and what influences do these have on me or my community? And what I began to notice,

Andrew Ainsworth [01:04:10] see,

Phil McLemore [01:04:10] I had been as a military chaplain, I'm doing services on the base on Sundays, so I'm not in church. So for 17 out of my 20 years as a chaplain, I was not in sacrament meeting or Sunday meetings. So to suddenly come back to church and be attending meetings every Sunday, I just was more keenly aware of the kinds of things that were being said. The first thing that I noticed was, without question, the number one Mormon mantra is, I know the church is true. 20, 30 years ago, or at least when I joined the church back in 1970, when people got up in testimony meetings, they were saying, I know the gospel is true. And all of a sudden I'm hearing, I know the church is true. And I thought. I wasn't quite sure when this shift took place, but I found it to be very significant because all of the children, 8, 9, 10 years old, getting up in testimony meetings in my ward, almost all of them, 90% of the time, would start with, I know the church is true. Then they might say something else and sit down. Well, what began to dawn on me was, if it is the church that's true, then subconsciously what's being programmed in is if it's the church that's true, then what's really important is my relationship to the organization. And so I think it generates a focus on how am I seen by the organization, how do I relate to the organization, what's my status within the organization? Because if that's what's true, if I'm okay with it, Then I'm going to be okay. And I found that not to be a very helpful thing in terms of spiritual focus. So that's just one example of how mantras take over our perception and then the subconscious effect that it has.

Mormon Mantras and Certainty in Mormonism

Andrew Ainsworth [01:06:19] And I am reading here from your essay. You provided a list of some of the mantras that you noticed. I know the church is true, of course, is on the top of the list. Another one being, but the church is still true. Another one, follow the prophet or follow the brethren, keep the commandments, sustain the Lord's chosen. I am active in the church. I have a testimony. Obedience is the first law of heaven. And you list several more. And so maybe you can. Well, actually, I think it'd be good if I read a little paragraph that struck me from your essay. You say there's no question that the Mormon mantras and teaching focus on authority and commandments. The benefit is safety and predictability. However, this focus creates boredom and hampers spiritual growth. The biggest complaint I hear from faithful mainstream Mormons is that so many of our meetings and classes are boring. Contrast these emphases and the resultant boredom to what happens when people live by principles and spirit. Passion and excitement arise when we move into unpredictable paths in response to the allure of faith. Neither life nor spiritual growth is safe and predictable. Spiritual living is creative, which means new and wonderful things can emerge with each step. Living by faith is being open to the wisdom of uncertainty. I hope you could. I want to give you the opportunity to expand on that idea a little bit.

Phil McLemore [01:08:13] Certainty is a key concept in Mormonism. To know something for sure, to know that something is certain. And of course, anything that we know for sure is something that's happened in the past, and we kind of lock down on that. And organizationally, I mean, organizations always worry about unpredictable things happening in the future that might be detrimental. So there's sometimes a hesitancy to move into the unknown. I mean, I've received hundreds of letters from active Mormons who are reporting spiritual stagnation, boredom at church, wanting a richer, deeper, fuller, more vibrant spiritual life. But they're afraid to do anything outside of mainstream Mormon spiritual practices because they might be open to what they fear as ungodly influences. So they hold back, doing the same things and having the same results. And the truth is, spiritual growth is unpredictable. It is creative. It should not be feared because God is out there. If your spiritual growth is legitimate, then according to the scriptures, the mysteries, the things you don't know or you're not aware of now should be unfolding as you're growing spiritually. So new, exciting, interesting, soul nourishing things should be unfolding to you. These are things that you aren't aware of or don't know about. And if you're not going to risk that, then your spiritual life is going to be stagnant. It's going to be boring. And as you know, organizations like predictability, they like stability. They don't want uncertainty. And you have to be willing to risk uncertainty if you're going to find this vibrant spiritual growth. I would say it's just nothing to be feared because it's God unfolding the mysteries of life unto us.

Andrew Ainsworth [01:10:26] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories Podcast. To discuss this podcast with others, please check us out@mormonstories.org to keep the podcast alive or to join our support community, please consider a tax deductible donation today at mormonstores. Music for this podcast was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. The Mormon Stories logo was generously provided by studiocase.com thank you for listening.

Phil McLemore [01:11:08] Still all my song shall be Nearer my go to thee Nearer I go to the Nearer to the.

Part 3 of 4 · Ep. 248

Phil McLemore [00:00:01] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org

Andrew Ainsworth [00:00:24] so Phil, what I hear you saying here is that what you're referring to as mantras, in the more colloquial sense, these oft repeated phrases, that we find these phrases within Mormonism. You discovered them by leaving regular sacrament meeting attendance for 17 years and then coming back into it, hearing these oft repeated phrases and realizing how they really do perform the function of mantras in LDS culture to the extent that they are mind tools, they shape our minds, they shape our discourse, they shape our culture. And you point out that these rather, I guess you raise the question of whether the mantras that we have within LDS culture, within Mormonism, are the best ones that we could have. There's a quote here from your essay that I liked. It says, I've heard it said that we Latter Day Saints left the sacred Grove many years ago and have been trapped in a beehive ever since. Our common LDS mantras and the culture they create support external compliance and organizational activity to such a degree that even influential general authorities working hard to promote genuine spiritual growth have minimal impact. Could you elaborate on that statement?

Phil McLemore [00:02:05] Well, I find it interesting that, I mean, Mormonism started with a mystical experience of communion with God in a sacred grove. We've evolved into a culture now where people are afraid to pray too long. I still have people when I encourage in Sunday school class, when I encourage people to pray long enough to get outside of their mantra prayers, their repetitive phrases to stretch their souls. Invariably I'll have somebody raise their hand and make reference to Elder McConkie's talk given during that George Pace episode where he discouraged lengthy prayer. So we have people that are afraid to even pray beyond kind of their repetitive needs and desires or prayer patterns to where they can even get to a state of communion with spiritual I gave some example, two examples in the article where I saw Elder Packer and Elder Oaks in particular, in areas in which I lived, do things to get people outside of focus on just organizational stuff and to root themselves more deeply in genuine spiritual practices and perspectives, only to have those overturned just by the organizational culture. And so in many ways we've established a culture that focuses on external worthiness, external religious practice, and we're just not encouraged, much less Instructed in how to do the inner spiritual work that leads to rebirth, that leads to transformation, that leads to the unfolding of a Christlike nature where we can put aside the negative habits that disrupt our lives and gunk up our relationships and have the ability to acquire the Christlike natures that are desired. It's the inner work that makes that possible, and we're just not doing much of it.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:04:38] Well, you used the example of a beehive, and that has been a symbol of. Of Mormonism for a long time. We've got the carvings of the beehive on many of our buildings in Salt Lake City. And that idea of the. If you look at our LDS meeting houses on Sundays, they certainly do seem like a beehive of activity. They're very far from being a very serene atmosphere of calm and reflection that you might find in a Buddhist monastery, or so I'd imagine. And so it seems like what you're saying is we're missing this element, this appreciation for stillness, for silence, for reverence. And instead we've become wrapped up in pursuing spirituality by becoming as busy as we possibly can with as many activities and programs as possible.

Phil McLemore [00:06:02] Yeah, I mean, most Mormons validate their spiritual worth by their level of church activity. I mean, in a casual conversation among Mormons, just mention casually that you spend 30 minutes or an hour meditating every

Andrew Ainsworth [00:06:20] morning, and they'll think you're a Froot

Phil McLemore [00:06:22] Loop and then just watch the stairs. I mean, what validates? I mean, just look at the phrase active Mormon. Are you active in the church? Oh, he's inactive. That's where our obsession is inactivity. And although, you know, there is a system called Karma Yoga, where spiritual transformation results as a way of providing selfless service where one serves beyond ego out of pure awareness, ego in the present moment, and out of pure love for another person, that can be spiritually transforming. But that's typically not what's happening in most of the activity that we're talking about. So I'm back to my premise now that the inner work needs to be done, and we just don't provide encouragement, instruction, validation for people doing this deep spiritual inner work.

Why the Church Has Been Cautious About Meditation

Andrew Ainsworth [00:07:35] And maybe we can then address the question again that I'm sure you've asked yourself numerous times, which is why, why, for example, if I could play the role of. Well, maybe I can play the role of myself 10 years ago and say to you, you know, Phil, this is great that you personally have found or feel you found some sort of insight through meditation, and I'm really glad that you were able to overcome your physical pain. But I start to feel really uncomfortable when you start to suggest that because you found something really special and great in meditation, that that demonstrates that there's some sort of deficiency within Mormonism. I mean, if meditation were needed, if it were a great and wonderful thing, I would expect it to be even mentioned in General Conference or in an Ensign article or in a church news article or in any of the numerous manuals that we have in curriculum. And so perhaps I would have said to you 10 years ago, that's great, philosopher, what you're saying about meditation. But I'll start meditating when President Monson or his successor tells me that it's something that I need to do as part of my true spiritual practice. What's your response to that?

Phil McLemore [00:09:29] Well, it's a great question. In the article, I have these quotes by President McKay where he defines spirituality as the consciousness of. Of victory over self and of communion with the infinite. That doesn't sound like a Mormon phrase because of the word consciousness and communion and the word infinite. What he did, personally, I don't know. I mean, people have said, I don't believe he was meditating the way you teach, and he probably wasn't. But I do believe it is an inspired statement. You know, consciousness of victory over self is this overcoming of sleep. It's this overcoming of conditioned limited awareness, and that results from communion with God, of communion with the infinite. There's that other statement where he said, in our worship, there are two elements. One is the spiritual communion arising from our own meditation. The other is instruction from others. Of the two, the more profitable is the meditation. And then in this beautiful statement, he says, meditation is one of the most secret, most sacred doors through which we pass into the presence of the Lord.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:10:47] Now, again, that's a quote from President McKay.

Phil McLemore [00:10:49] It is.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:10:51] Okay.

Phil McLemore [00:10:51] And the way I typically answer this is, you know, he mentions this word secret. Well, you know, it's typical in our Sunday school rhetoric to advise people to avoid the mysteries and to stick with the basics. It's completely contrary to the Scriptures. Throughout the Book of Mormon, throughout the Doctrine and Covenants, we are encouraged. Encouraged to seek the mysteries, to move beyond the preparatory gospel, and to have the mysteries revealed to you. Well, the truth is the church can't be responsible for the revealing of mysteries. That is, an individual by individual part of the spiritual quest. That's only something that can happen between you and God himself. So the church really can't be responsible for revealing the mysteries. The church is really responsible for establishing the gospel as the Book of Mormon defines it, which are the foundational teachings. It's really an individual responsibility to pursue the mysteries. And what are the mysteries? The mysteries are a clear, aware, experiential knowledge and awareness of the nature and presence of God, the nature of my own soul and the relationship that I should be having with God. I mean, those are the ultimate mysteries. And that is an individual responsibility, not a church responsibility. And

Andrew Ainsworth [00:12:26] I don't think there's anyone who would disagree with that at all, that, that the responsibility rests on our own shoulders to achieve those things. I guess the lingering question is, although it's true that the church can't provide those things for us or just hand them to us, couldn't it at least. And couldn't the leaders at least point out the method or the means to get there? I guess that's my point, which is, if meditation is a valid means of getting there, and based on your life experience, I think it's fair to say that you think it's a pretty essential way to get there. Why is Nephi not telling us about meditation, posture and focusing on our breathing? And why does. You know, the prophet Isaiah never mentioned it, and you know, none of the gospel writers write directly about it. I mean, I'm sure that you've. That you've pondered these questions before, and I'm just wondering how you personally answer them.

Phil McLemore [00:13:41] Well, I mean, ultimately I've moved in the direction where I have felt led by the Spirit and what has worked for me. At first, I spent a lot of time trying to correlate all of this with church teaching. At some point I just moved on in the flow of grace. And I'm not trying to equate myself here with Jesus, but the thing that the religious leaders were amazed about with Jesus is that he taught as one having authority and not as the scribes. Well, how did the scribes teach? Well, the scribes taught from the books. They were their experts in what these scriptures taught and that scripture taught. And Jesus wasn't limited to that. He wasn't bound by that. His teaching was a manifestation of his relationship, his intimate relationship and communion with God. That's what he taught out of. Aware of the Scriptures? Yes. Could he teach from the Scriptures? Yes. But he clearly was teaching things beyond the Scriptures or beyond their understandings of the Scriptures because of his enlightened awareness. And that's just the direction I have gotten to move. Now, my wife would say that as people in general, we're obviously not prepared or ready for that. And so we get kind of what we're prepared for as a community. And for those who are ready, then the Spirit opens up those potentials and possibilities.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:15:18] Sure. So another way of looking at it would be perhaps milk before meat and perhaps meditation is for those who are ready for the meat. But the sort of default institutional assumption arguably needs to be that providing milk, at least for the time being, is what's most important. Because I would think a lot of people would say, well, Phil, if I'm going to meditate, if the brethren think I need to meditate, then obviously the brethren are going to provide that opportunity. And I have that in sacrament meeting, and I have that in the celestial room. I mean, if I'm supposed to really meditate and commune with God and achieve this higher consciousness, isn't that what the celestial room at the temple is for?

Phil McLemore [00:16:10] Well, it could be. It should be. I don't see a lot of that when I go. And the truth is most of the men that are general authorities are general authorities because they've demonstrated loyalty to the organization and success in admittance ministering the functions of the church. And frankly, most of them have very little knowledge or understanding of meditation as we've described it. So they're not teaching it because they're not aware of it. So then it becomes an individual responsibility. I gave a presentation at Sunstone last August called Hindering the Saints, and it was based on that scripture where Jesus was criticizing the religious leaders of the day for being hypocrites, which I do not believe LDS Church leaders are number two, for not understanding the inner or deeper meaning of the Scriptures, and for setting up a system of worthiness and external worship that hindered people who were ready to enter the kingdom of God. Well, I do think there is a problem with those latter two things. I'm not sure a lot of the brethren do understand the inner meaning of the Scriptures, the processes that need to take place for spiritual transformation to unfold. I do think people are restricted and hindered because we have set up a system of external worthiness and external religious practice that diverts people's attention away from inner spiritual development. Jesus was critical of those things in his day, and I to some degree believe we have those same problems today.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:18:07] Let's talk about. Let's circle back to a topic you brought up earlier, which is the issue of certainty versus uncertainty. And I guess I'm wondering. Let me just kind of think out loud here. I guess I'm wondering whether one of the reasons that members of the church aren't encouraged, you know, over the pulpit in General conference to engage in Eastern style meditative practice Might be a couple of things. One being that it's an extremely individualistic experience, meditation, and that it seems as though the church leaders would like us to channel our spiritual practice through church activities and programs that it keeps us tethered to. I think what they see is the stabilizing, safe, secure course and that if someone goes off into meditation trying to explore higher levels of consciousness that they might be let off the straight and narrow path. And I guess what I'm saying is, is there a tension between Eastern meditative practice and. I shouldn't keep saying Eastern because as you pointed out, the Christian Orthodox Church has a rich meditative tradition. Even within the Roman Catholic Church there's a meditative tradition. But is meditation, is this individual spiritual pursuit at odds with or in tension with organized, structured, institutionalized religion? Can they coexist? Can they be integrated together? Or do the brethren not mention meditation because they see some sort of danger? There's.

Phil McLemore [00:20:35] Yeah, an excellent question. There is a natural internal tension there. And there is an element of risk. Maybe the best way to explain this

Andrew Ainsworth [00:20:55] is

Phil McLemore [00:20:57] I'm actually writing about this currently and should have an article out soon on this topic. I've done this in public in a number of places.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:21:06] Where will it be published?

Phil McLemore [00:21:08] Well, assuming they like should be in a future sunstone and then I'm actually working on a book. It'll be in that also. I've developed a model of stages of spiritual growth based on scriptural images. And in the model it starts with the parent child stage where authority is the main function here. And when you have, whether it's a young child growing up or an immature spiritual person learning to develop individuals spiritual growth, there needs to be someone in authority who is kind, who is nurturing, who has the interest of the person at heart and can lead him and guide him. It's a parent child kind of relationship. And the focus is on the knowledge and experience and authority of the leader. At some point leaders shouldn't be bound up holding hands for the rest of someone's life. And the natural evolution is to move from the parent child stage to the steward stage where you've learned certain commandments and rules and procedures and now you demonstrate your stewardship by being productive, by being responsible, by producing, so to speak, in the church context. And you acquit yourself as a good steward with those things that you've done been taught. But at some point, if a steward is wanting to progress, they look at The Master. And they say, gee, rather than just being a servant to the Master, I'd like to be like the Master. And at that point there's a natural evolution into what I would call the disciple stage, where a person's intent now is to actually become like Christ or become like the Master. And the discipleship stage is a transitional stage. And typically what will happen, and this is where there's risk. The disciple is. I mean, once a person, through their inner spiritual work, begins to know the Master and become like him, there is a natural shift of loyalty away from the organization to the Master himself. And that's the shift that can be dangerous or risky. The Church has a whole ton of history of people who believe they've evolved themselves spiritually to the point where they don't need to function in the Church anymore. And in many cases, people become self deceived and they rationalize all sorts of aberrant behavior because of the revelations they're receiving. And so it does become very risky and very dangerous. The parent, child and disciple stages tend to be safe. They tend to be predictable, they tend not to cause problems. And so organizationally there is a tendency to keep people in those parent, child and steward stages. So the discipleship stage is transitional. And typically what happens within Mormonism is those who are experienced and bright and spiritually developed, who will often tend to then channel their discipleship aspirations and their spiritual development and talent back into the organization to nurture folks at those earlier stages and to express their loyalty to the organization. And so their discipleship gets diverted back into those first two stages. It's very helpful to the people at those lower stages. But the discipleship movement stagnates at that point. For me, ideally what should happen is, is the loyalty should shift from the organization to the Master. And once that loyalty is there, then the person becomes unpredictable. I mean, when I was asked on my mission to do things that I believed were unethical, other missionaries did those things. The result was internal conflict, all kinds of suffering, bitterness, anger. They ended up going inactive. I didn't do it because I was spiritually advanced. I just couldn't do something that was obviously absurd. And it kind of saved me from a lot of the problems those missionaries had. But at this point, if I had to make a choice between something I believed was in harmony with the nature of Christ, that was contrary to something I was being asked to do in the Church, I'm going to choose the Master, not the organization. And that's where things get risky. And again, you can understand the organizational tendency for predictability and control. Now, the stages beyond disciple is the friend stage and the beloved stage. And these are stages where you enter, literally enter into a friendship with the Master. And if you think about what a friendship is, a friendship is a. Is where there's mutual sharing, mutual understanding. It's hard for many members of the church to believe that they have something that they could offer at some level of equality with the Master. And so there's a tendency for people to not even believe that's possible. And they never move into that friendship stage, much less this stage of intimate oneness, of the beloved stage. One of the strangest things about Mormonism is more than any other Christian religion that I'm aware of, we teach eternal progression. We teach the possibility of literally becoming like God. We talk about divine nature in a more real way than in most other Christian religions. But most of our members don't feel that. Most LDS counselors will tell you that 90% of the women that come to see them feel deficient. They feel inadequate. And I sit back shaking my head, trying to figure out how is it that Mormons who are taught that they are literally children of God, that they have divine nature within their soul, can feel inadequate and deficient. I mean, it is the strangest thing, that inadequacy and deficiency can only come from the way we're practicing our religion. It can only come from the way we do Mormonism. And it obviously is undoing this flow of progression toward becoming a friend of the Lord. So what could I offer Jesus on a level of equality of friendship? What you can offer is the sharing of an awakened spirit soul. If in fact there is spiritual rebirth and spiritual transformation and the divine nature within you has unfolded and is becoming like him, then it's obvious there is going to be mutual interest and mutual sharing and mutual understanding. And that potential is at the core of Mormon teaching and doctrine. But because Latter Day Saints aren't doing that interspersed spiritual work and aren't having that inner spiritual development taking place, they're not sensing this. They're not really experientially. That doesn't sound very good, experientially experiencing. They're not actually experiencing the true nature of their essence of being, that unlimited divine potential. And because church culture pushes downward for stability and predictability, people stay stuck in this parent, child, or steward mode that we like so much. And so you miss the joy of this friendship. You miss the joy of becoming the beloved of the Lord.

The Yoga of Christ and Non-Attachment

Andrew Ainsworth [00:29:54] So, Phil, now is probably a good time to segue to a discussion of your other article published in Sunstone Magazine called the Yoga of Christ Letting Go of Our Attachments and Becoming United with God. Actually, Phil, I should back up. Did I add that as my own subtitle or is that the subtitle of your article?

Phil McLemore [00:30:23] Yeah, there was no subtitle. It was just the pages.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:30:27] I'm rewriting your article here in my outline. Okay, let me read you the question. This was reminding me the general topic that we were going to be discussing here. So sorry about that. Let me do it. Let me do a do over. So, Phil, let's turn to a discussion of your other article that was published in Sunstone Magazine entitled Yoga of Christ. And one of the questions that you pose in that essay is you ask, have we so Westernized or Mormonized Christ's teachings to the point that we've lost critical perspectives and insights? Is it possible that the teachings of Jesus are so comprehensive that they encompass the core spiritual principles of both east and West? And so why don't I let you use that as a jumping off point to discuss your essay, the Yoga of Christ?

Phil McLemore [00:31:31] Well, sure. I mentioned this a little earlier when I went through this crises of am I a Mormon guy or a yogi guy? And. The resolution for me was this experience I had with that passage in Matthew 11, come unto me. And I actually spent several months interviewing people in the church that I admired and respected. Bishops, stake presidents, in one case, a general authority, some BYU professors, people that to me exemplified the best that we have in Mormonism. And in our discussions, sooner or later we would be talking about just general life challenges and struggles and difficulties with family or work or health and so forth. And all of the folks that I talked with ultimately talked about the burdens of mortal life. And of course, Jesus says that if you take his yoke upon you, the burden will be light and there will be rest. And not one of these individuals reported to me light burden or rest in the Lord as a general tenor of their life. And the conclusion I came to is, if we're not experiencing the light burden, then we're obviously not practicing the yoga of Christ. We're not being yoked with Christ as it explains in Matthew 11.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:33:26] There

Phil McLemore [00:33:30] during that time period, I was studying deeply the writings of Paramahansa Yogananda, who came to America with the message that he actually came to America with a message of restored yoga, which I thought was interesting. He was explaining how the yoga tradition had gone into apostasy and how his particular lineage of gurus had restored the true essence of yoga teaching. Part of his message was to share with Christians in America that the original teachings of yoga and the original teachings of Christ were in harmony. And of course that's I explained earlier is what I experienced when I began to understand the teachings of Jesus in a much deeper and richer way. Well, as I was studying the writings of Yogananda and other yogic scriptures and I began to see this harmony with the teachings of Jesus, what dawned on me was this. In some core yogic scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, there was a simple twofold formula that seemed to be at the center of spiritual rebirth or spiritual transformation. And those two things were communion with God and a principle that's taught very commonly in Eastern traditions of detachment or non attachment. And it is taught that the interplay of these two things, being able to detach yourself from the things of the world and the function of conceptual thought and desires and fears, and to be able to detach from that and to root yourself in communion with your inner being and with the presence of God, that union with God ultimately takes place and of course, spiritual rebirth. What dawned on me was that Jesus, I believe, exemplified and taught very clearly the importance of those two principles. And I call it the Yoga of Christ now because I believe in his teachings and his life and the symbols of his life and the events of his lives. He taught those two principles as clearly, if not more clearly than anything I was finding in ancient yogic scriptures. And of course in the article I, I go through many, many scriptures where Jesus talks about not being attached to the things of the world.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:36:38] Why don't you give us a few or several examples if you will.

Phil McLemore [00:36:43] Well, just going through the New Testament, if anyone wants to take away your coat, let them have your cloak. Also, don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. One's life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses. So he's obviously talking about not being attached to our possessions, our earthly treasures, our riches, or as he says, anything that can be stolen or eaten up by a moth. He says in Matthew 6, don't worry about your life, what you eat, what you drink, your clothing. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. He's clearly telling us not to be attached to our bodies themselves, nor to any sins to which the body might be inclined. He tells us not to resist an evil person. But if someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the left cheek, take heed that you don't do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. He talks a lot about the problem of people doing things to be seen by men. They love the best seats at feasts and the best seats in synagogues. And of course, encourages the greatest to be the servants. So he's clearly telling us not to be attached to image, to pride, to reputation, to position, to power. There's that great phrase in Matthew 6 where he. He says, don't worry about tomorrow. So he's telling us not to be attached to the future. He has that great verse, no one having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. He obviously doesn't want us to be attached to the past. Of course, many of the psychiatric or psychological problems that people have are these deep attachments to burdens and pains and disappointments in the past. Scripture is about, if your brother sins against you, go to him and try to work this out between the two of you. He even says, if you bring your gift to the altar and you've got something against your brother, reconcile that before you bring your gift to God. And then he talks about the significance of forgiveness. If you don't forgive others, others, your heavenly Father won't forgive you.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:39:03] So, so let. So don't be attached to your. Your grudges. Let go of your grudges.

Phil McLemore [00:39:08] Sure, don't be attached to anger, to resentments, to offenses that. That you've received. And of course, we all receive those. But if you become attached to them, you can see it ties your mind up in the past. It gets you thinking about the future and ways to protect yourself. And it takes you away from the present moment, which is where spiritual life is.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:39:31] And again, a lot of these negative qualities you're talking about, like anger or pride or jealousy, are rooted in our attachment to reputation, attachment to a particular self image that we feel is offended or attacked, that we then feel like we need to defend through angry or negative or sometimes even violent behavior. Is that the idea?

Phil McLemore [00:40:03] Well, yeah, because again, we're identified with our image of ourselves. Our thoughts, our emotions, our feelings and our identity is posited in that and not in our essential nature. And so when those things are threatened, we act out that distress and try to protect ourselves.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:40:26] It really helps you understand the expression poor in spirit. I remember being a teenager reading that in a Sunday school class and thinking it was such an odd way to phrase a virtue. We just usually do not associate poverty or being poor as being a good thing, a positive thing, a virtuous. Thing. And so I could never figure out being poor in spirit. But it seems like that sort of phrase is another example maybe of what you're talking about. That through this process of letting go of our ego, our self image, our reputation, our. Our expectations for a specific outcome in the future, the more things we let go of, the more impoverished we become. But it's a good poverty. It's a poverty that consists of lacking any sorts of attachments. Is that the idea?

Phil McLemore [00:41:35] Yeah, I mean, this is a classic Zen Buddhism sort of story that, you know, if your cup is full of desire, of fear of attachments to people, places, things, situations, outcomes and circumstances, I mean, if your cup is full of all of those things, then there's no space to be able to receive spiritual nourishment or to receive the blessing that comes from communion with God. And so the idea is to empty all of these things out so that there's space to receive divine presence. And we tend to be attached to all sorts of things other than that. What amazed me as I began to do this study in the New Testament was how often, how extensively Jesus taught this principle of non attachment. That is difficult to explain. That doesn't sound very desirable because we normally associate the word attachment to things that are good and positive. The fact is our attachments to things limit our ability to receive grace for grace. Again, it was just one example to me of how clearly the teachings of Jesus were in harmony with what I would call yogic philosophy.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:43:08] In your article, you basically summarize how you see the yoga of Christ consisting of two main elements, the first being non attachment. And then how that arriving at a state of non attachment of letting go of all these things we've discussed, then puts us in a position to truly commune with God. And maybe you can tell us about that second aspect of the yoga of Christ.

Phil McLemore [00:43:43] Yeah, see, this isn't a linear kind of thing. These, these two things revolve at the same time. So just to be able to meditate and to commune with God, you have to practice a certain level of non attachment. I mean, the fact that you're going to take the time to sit in a room alone and detach your awareness from your body and your thoughts and your activities to be able to meditate. See, those are the beginnings of non attachment. As you begin to root yourself in divine communion and your identity begins to shift to your inner soul nature, then the need, the need to be attached to things outside of yourself that give you a sense of security or power is lessened and it's easier then to let go of, of the things that support the image of yourself or to support the things that make you feel safe or secure or powerful in the world. You can start to let those things go. And to the extent that you can let those things go, you see, you're creating more space for communion and the influence of the spirit. So this kind of works hand in hand together as we seek for spiritual transformation.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:45:07] Sorry, go ahead.

Phil McLemore [00:45:08] Well, and that famous Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. So to the degree that we root our identity, our sense of identity and being in God, the natural consequence of that is going to be less desiring, less wanting, less needing of things that are extreme external.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:45:37] Yeah, I mean, as an example, Jesus was homeless and unemployed from what I can tell from the scriptures. And I guess the ultimate expression of non attachment is ultimately not even being attached to his own life. I'm intrigued by this quote in your article. You say, Here's a quote. We are so verbal today that it's hard for us not to imagine prayer either as monologue in which I tell God things and God listens, or as a conversation in which I tell God things and God answers back. But from what I understand out of the ancient monastic materials I work on, prayer is really an entire relationship. And the verbal part is only one element. A lot of what we learn when we pray is to be quiet. We need to stop thinking that a relationship is constituted only by language. The issue is not so much does God talk back, and if so, how, but whether we can learn to just be in God's presence. I was wondering if you'd expand on that a little bit.

Prayer, Ego, and Contemplative Worship

Phil McLemore [00:46:53] Yeah. We are very verbal, obviously, because our thoughts are in words. And in yogic philosophy, it is the activity of the mind that overshadows or covers soul nature. And so we're back to this. Be still and know that I am God. We've got to get beyond the activity of the mind. And of course, as we said before, most people's prayers are mental activity. And their prayers tend to be extensions of their ego. And they tend to be ways of getting what you want and avoiding what you don't want. None of that is spiritually transformative.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:47:41] Can you explain just a little more specifically about what it means to say that our prayers are extensions of our ego?

Phil McLemore [00:47:50] Well, if you look at the things that people pray about, what do they pray about? They pray about their attachments, they pray about. And I'm not saying they're bad things necessarily, but they're Praying for things that give them their sense of identity, of well being, of safety, of security. They're the things, the people, the situations, the outcomes that we're attached to, to feel like our lives are meaningful or success. Those are the things that people normally pray about. And they're not really the essence of what the purpose of our life is. So again, we get lost in the movie and we miss the essence of the purpose of our lives. I hope I can remember this correctly. The great Catholic female mystic, Saint Teresa of Avila. I mean, she obviously had this spiritually transformed life. And someone reportedly came to her to ask about her prayers and the impact of her prayers. And they said to her, what do you say to God? And she says, well, I don't say much. I mainly listen. And the person said, oh, well, what does God say to you? And she says, well, he doesn't say much. He mainly listens. And you know, at first your tendency, the Western mind, is to say, well, gee, it doesn't sound like there's much going on there. Right, because there's no dialogue. As if dialogue is the solution to all this. Well, no, it's the listening, it's the communing, it's the being with. It's the being influenced by at a level that is deeper and richer than language. So, yeah, we are addicted to language and the result is our spiritual life tends to be conceptual and conceptual understandings just are not spiritually transformative.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:49:59] Yeah, it seems like, you know, as I was reading the article, it got me musing on how verbal we are as Mormons. Our worship services consist of announcements which are words, hymns which are words, giving talks which are words, sitting in gospel doctrine or gospel principles, again, exchanging words. We start with a prayer and end with a closing prayer, which are words. And we really seem to have a difficult time worshipping without words. And so this seems like a very radical concept to commune with God without words. I think a lot of people probably do think that to commune means to talk to or to talk with. But it sounds like you're talking about a form of communing with God that just doesn't involve language at all. It's not about praying and it's not about acquisition. It's not about asking him to solve your problems for you, but just being with him. And I guess that brings us back to where meditation comes into play.

Phil McLemore [00:51:31] Well, absolutely, because, see, language is part of the veil that obstructs our vision of the nature and presence of God and the nature of our own soul. Language is a part of the veil. So it's one of the things that it needs to be removed so we can see clearly. I mean, when President McKay talked about two elements, he says in our worship there are two elements. Spiritual Communion from our meditation and instruction from others. Well, our meetings are obviously all instruction from others. There is no communion in our meetings. If you attended a Quaker service, most of the time in a Quaker service is spent in silence. I mean, that would just completely freak us out.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:52:21] Yeah, it seems like we give a head nod to the idea of silence in a couple concepts. I mean, the ones that come most readily to mind are during the sacrament where we are silent really for the only time during church. Other than that, we're back to the beehive of activity and of speaking and. And the other, of course, being in the celestial room in the temple without divulging anything. Everything else basically involves words. And I think it's interesting that in what are the most sacred, most holy places and moments in LDS worship, the silence is there, referring again to the sacrament and to the celestial room. But it seems like we maybe have a hard time with silence and don't know what to do with it once we get it.

Phil McLemore [00:53:28] Exactly. I mean, just watch people in sacrament meeting during the sacrament and see what they're doing. They don't know what to do with the silence. People look around, distract themselves. They play with things. I saw a lady balancing her checkbook one time during the sacrament. We just don't know what to do with silence. I'll go into the celestial room and sit down and I want to commune. I want to sit in silence. I've been in the celestial room and had groups of people around me talking about their family, talking about their new trip truck, talking about stuff that's going on in their ward or some party they're having. I mean, they're doing it in the celestial room. I've been in the celestial room. I'll stay in there long enough for everybody to go where there's maybe only me and one or two other people, and then have temple workers get nervous because I've been in there so long and start walking by and coughing and trying to move me along. We're not comfortable with silence. We talk about the still small voice, but we're not comfortable listening for it for some reason.

Non-Attachment in a Western Consumer Culture

Andrew Ainsworth [00:54:47] Let's return to the topic of non attachment. As we all know, Western culture is very acquisitive. It focuses. We live in a culture of consumerism where a lot of our attention is constantly diverted towards trying to get Us to feel and think as if we need to acquire various things and then performing labor to earn the money to acquire those things with the carrot being dangled in front of us, that we will achieve some sort of happiness or contentment or satisfaction in our life with acquiring the latest and greatest whatever. And so this idea of non attachment runs very contrary to our Western culture. And I imagine that there's at least some listeners out there who might have the reaction. I had the first time I learned about non attachment, when I really wasn't ready for the concept yet, where I thought that this idea of non attachment was misguided in that we do need to be and indeed ought to be attached to certain things, that we ought to be attached to the church, that we ought to be attached to our families. As Mormons, we put so much emphasis on having eternal families. And so the idea of being eternally attached to our spouse and seeing sealing as a way of permanently attaching us to each other. And I think a lot of people would say, you know, it's good for me to be attached to my children. And so could you explain, could you respond to that, what may be, you know, a typical Western response to the idea of non attachment?

Phil McLemore [00:57:07] Yeah. And this is where we see the problem is, in English, we don't have

Phil McLemore [00:57:11] a word

Phil McLemore [00:57:14] to describe this concept of non attachment very well. So we just kind of struggle with that. But you've got Jesus saying, he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And then he follows that with, take up your cross and following me. I mean, that would be the hardest attachment to let go. This, this family attachment. He seems to be asking that. I mean, in Luke 14, what does he say? Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has, cannot be my disciple. Matthew 5:8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Well, in the Eastern context, purity means non sticky. It means you're pure because you're not contaminated with something else. There's not attachment or stickiness to other things. And because there is that freedom, then there is a clarity of sight to be able to see God. Typically, as long as we're attached to things, there seems to be an underlying element of need. I'm trying to fill a particular sense of deficiency or need by having a certain relationship, a certain image, a certain position, a certain possession, and that's a game that we never win. And that's what's being addressed with this principle. Of non attachment. Now, can it get to an extreme? Well, sure. I mean, if you go to India and wander around, you're going to see some of these naked yogis. These are people who literally have no possessions, no clothes, and they wander around teaching their philosophy and begging for food. I mean, is that what Jesus is requiring or demanding? Well, I don't think so. I think the principle here is we need to root our identity in God and fully in God. And when our needs and desires are met in God, then the peace and the fullness and the wholeness and the happiness and the satisfaction that comes out of that then enriches in a very pure way our desires, our relationships, the things that we own, the situations that we find ourselves in. Non attachment really is a way of freeing ourselves to be rooted in God, the love and peace of God, and then anything that's good in our lives, and I mean good situations, good people, possessions that are necessary to sustain our lives, Those things then become avenues for the expression of the nature and the character and the love of God. Rather than some subconscious need to have those things to feel secure and to feel okay. It allows us to fulfill God's purpose in those things rather than to meet our underlying psychological needs.

Andrew Ainsworth [01:00:36] So here's another concept you bring up in your essay. Is that another common Western response to or criticism of the idea of non attachment is that their idea of love, they equate love with being attached. That of course I need to be attached to my wife. If I love her, love is a good thing. If love is a good thing and love means attachment, then attachment must not be a bad thing. And your response in the article essentially is, yes, but can you truly love someone while being attached to so many things? I was wondering if you could discuss that a bit.

Phil McLemore [01:01:28] Yeah. See, typically when, I mean, you watch couples, I need you, I want you, I have to have you. But what happens when these couples have conflict? What happens when these couples start fighting? I mean, typically people get together because there's a idea that this person is going to meet my needs in a way that another person can't. And then they get into a marriage and they find that they've married a human being who has their own needs and their own problems and their own difficulties and. And at some point they're not meeting your need the way you anticipated. Well, then resentment pops up and there's anger and then there's conflict and there's frustration and, you know, where is the love in all of that? I think, you know, when Jesus says, seek Ye first the kingdom of God. And that means full awareness and full attention. Then all of these other things will be added. Rather than do that, we, before we seek first the kingdom, we reach out to put together all of these situations, relationships, in the way that we think is best, and then struggle with the complications as they arise. Rather than emptying ourselves of the need and the attachments, rooting our identity, fulfilling our needs and finding wholeness in relationship with God, and then moving into our life, our circumstances and situations and relationships, empowered by this sense of wholeness and fullness, and then being empowered to really be able to love selflessly and fully and completely. As long as I feel that someone's going to withdraw their love from me and I'm going to feel threatened, there's going to be conflict with that person. If I'm whole and complete in God, even if they fail to meet my needs, I don't have to react with defensiveness or hostility or anger or fear. I can reach out and maybe provide nourishment or healing or a sense of God's fullness when they're weak and when they're not able to maybe rise up and do something that's pleasurable or good or satisfying or meaningful for me, I'm not dependent on them to meet a need that only God himself can meet.

Andrew Ainsworth [01:04:11] Yeah, so that's an interesting idea. And I think what you point out is correct, which is that. Yeah, I mean, we get married for the reason that we have certain. Or at least we feel like we have certain needs and desires and wants and goals, and we're very attached to them. And we see this person that we're bringing into our life as someone who can help fulfill those goals and needs and wants. And of course, the source of so much marital conflict being that because we're so attached to these needs and because we're so attached to our feeling of entitlement for our spouse to meet those needs, that when our spouse then fails to meet those needs or wants or fails to help us reach our goals, our attachment to that feeling of entitlement for them to accomplish that for us creates all sorts of anger and resentment. Is that the idea?

Phil McLemore [01:05:16] Well, yeah, and it's very common in relationships. One minute you're feeling very close, very warm, very nourished, very loving, and then something can happen where there's this bitter anger and conflict. Well, that's not pure love. See, there's something wrong there. There's something going on that's reflecting neediness and not the fullness and wholeness of experiencing your inner soul nature. As you know, we didn't talk about this, but in yogic philosophy, the belief is that at the core of your being you are in the image of God, meaning that in your soul is God, goodness, wholeness, love, joy, peace in a whole and a complete form, that that is the nature of your inner being. In much of Christianity, the belief is that the soul is flawed, that it's deficient, and that is the experience of the natural man, that it is flawed and deficient. And so we reach out to attach ourselves to all of these things to compensate for that. Well, it just hasn't. I mean, in all of history that is not proven to work. So Mormonism is weird because at one level we teach this divine nature of the spirit, this infinite divine potential of the Spirit, but yet we practice our religion in such a way, as I've said, that we're people feel inadequate or deficient. So I think we have a contradiction in what we teach and how we teach it. The result is people not feeling whole and complete and then people ending up with a whole load of attachments. And all attachments aren't bad. I mean, clearly some people are attached to what we might consider to be sinful things or evil things to compensate for needs in their life. But there is a kind of spiritual materialism where people attach themselves to education or job or success or talent or ability. They're good things, but as long as they're primarily meeting a psychological need that's based in deficiency, it's not going to ultimately be fulfilling. And so that kind of attachment still creates a problem.

Andrew Ainsworth [01:07:50] I want to read a quote here from your article. You say in the east the concept of non attachment is viewed positively since it refers to the ability to find happiness beyond the play of pleasure and pain, because it points to a kind of happiness rooted in something deeper than the world of form. Also, practitioners of non attachment know that being non attached does not mean that you don't care, don't assume responsibility, nor ignore the needs and feelings of others. And I thought that was an important clarification to make is that non attachment doesn't mean, like you said, it doesn't mean taking this attitude of I don't care about anything, I don't have responsibility over anything, I don't care about your feelings. That non attachment, really what you're talking about here is selflessness. It's the elimination of self influence, interest.

Phil McLemore [01:08:45] That's correct. And the truth is it is the non attached person who is empowered and most capable of loving Purely and selfishly. I mean, that's the paradox of this. And a paradox is that which seems contradictory but is in fact true.

Andrew Ainsworth [01:09:04] Yeah. You know, it reminds me of a scripture. I believe It's Romans, chapter 8, where Paul is explaining, to my knowledge the word unconditional love doesn't show up in Scripture, although we use that terminology a lot, unconditional love. But I think for me, the closest we get to that is in Romans 8 where Paul says he's differentiating between the love, the people that mankind is able to have, versus the divine love, the love God is able to have, the love Christ is able to have. He does that by saying a man clings to his life. He does not want to sacrifice his life, but he might give up his life to save the life of a very good man. Someone might jump in the way and take a bullet for Gandhi or for Mother Teresa. But he says that Christ showed his love to us and in that he died for us while we were still sinners. And there it seems to me, Paul is again talking about how Christ sort of love was so full of non attachment that he didn't condition his love on approval, that he loved us and died for us, even while we weren't worthy of it, even while we were still sinners. Do you see that as. Talking about the concept of non attachment?

Phil McLemore [01:11:01] Well, yeah. First of all, he can see through. In other words, he sees the nature of the soul and he's going to work for the redemption of the soul, regardless of how deeply involved we are in ignorance or not. I mean, I mentioned this in the article. Look at what we do with the parable of the prodigal son. I used to hate that parable. It made no sense to me. It's now one of my favorites. But we do strange things with it in Mormonism. I mean, you have the two sons. The one son leaves the presence of the father, goes out into the world, squanders his inheritance in riotous living, ends up in the pig pen, which of course in Jewish imagery is the bottom of the barrel. Pigs being unclean, it's as low as you can go in the King James Bible, as he's in that state, the phrase is he came to himself. Interesting phrase. And then he wants to be back in the presence of the father. He feels unworthy, so he just wants to be on the corner of the property as a servant. He doesn't expect full admission because he's proven himself unworthy. And so he starts the trek back, hoping just to be on the corner. Well, what happens? The Father sees him coming. I mean, in our typical sense of justice and morality, we would expect that he'd make the kid come all the way back up, drag him in the house, string him up, punish him in some way, and then stick him on the corner of the property. Instead, Jesus uses this story to reveal the true nature of God. The second he sees him, he rushes out to meet him. He slips the shoes on his feet, which is symbolic of family, not servant. Puts the robe around him, he puts the ring on his finger. It's complete and full acceptance as a family member. And then he brings him inside for the. The celebration. The other son, who is described as never having violated any of the commandments of the Father, he's the ultimate commandment keeper, which in Mormonism is the pinnacle of spirituality. He's now standing outside pouting because he didn't get a party. And, you know, you have to say to yourself at this point, you know, whose heart is closest to the Father? Well, we interpret that parable. At least Elder McConkie did that. It's nice. The kid, the prodigal, got a party, but when it's all said and done, he's going to be subservient to this impatient, angry, uncompassionate son who kept all the commandments, who's going to inherit all things. I mean, we're so hung up on this attachment to commandment keeping being the end all that. We take the clear meaning of this parable and turn it completely inside out. The message there is. And of course, the Father goes out to try to bring the commandment keeping son in. And of course, if you look at the parable in its context, Jesus is using the elder Son to represent the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, who did all the external stuff for right, but didn't do the internal things. You see what I'm saying? The prodigal son finally gets the inside right and then ends up being received completely by the Father in spite of the ignorance and the sin that he was in. So we get attached to notions of spirituality being a certain way to such a degree that we can take a clear teaching of Jesus where he reveals the truth, true nature of the Father, turn it inside out.

Phil McLemore [01:15:02] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories Podcast. To discuss this podcast with others, please check us out@mormonstories.org to keep the podcast alive or to join our support community, please consider a tax deductible donation today@mormonstories.org music for this podcast was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. The Mormon Stories logo was generously provided by studiocase.com thank you for listening.

Phil McLemore [01:15:30] Nearer, my God to thee Nearer to Thee Even though it be a cross that raised me still all my song shall be Nearer, my God, nearer my Go to thee Nearer to Thee.

Spiritual Maturity, Commandments, and the Active Path

Part 4 of 4 · Ep. 249

Andrew Ainsworth [00:00:01] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber

Andrew Ainsworth [00:00:20] today@mormonstories.org so, Phil, I'd like to ask you to talk about something else you raised. In your Yoga of Christ essay. You talked about how in the church, when we are encouraged to participate in certain activities or to fulfill certain callings, to obey certain commandments or elements of counsel from our priesthood leaders, that the carrot that's often dangled in front of us is. Well, first of all, that there usually is a carrot dangled in front of us. And that carrot, we might call it blessings. And usually the blessing is a promise of happiness. And you mentioned that you thought that that process of encouraging us to create these expectations as a motivation to obey or to do something might not exactly be helpful to our spiritual development and was hoping you could talk about that.

Phil McLemore [00:01:39] Yeah. See, that orientation is reflective of a parent child relationship with God. It is a necessary stage at the beginning for early spiritual development, but it's not a mature way and it obviously is not, again, leading toward the inner sort of spiritual rebirth and transformation that's being promised in the scriptures. And so we have a ton of frustrated Mormons. I've received, I'm not exaggerating. I've received hundreds of emails from active, faithful, impressive members of the church who described decades of extraordinary devotion, commitment, sacrifice, service, magnifying their colleagues, doing everything they've been asked to do in the belief, in the hope, in the desire that there would be a richness of spiritual life and rebirth. And what they're reporting is after decades of that, that hasn't been realized.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:03:02] I'm just curious, can I interject a question here? In what context are these people contacting you? Is it that they've read your essays and that what you wrote resonated, or is it in the context of your being a meditation instructor? What's the context here?

Phil McLemore [00:03:25] In most cases, they've read those two articles. They've read either the mantra article or the yoga article or both. And I mean, that mantra article was written four, five years ago. I still get a couple of emails every week, people running across that. And that's what they're saying to me. I've done all of these things for 40 years. I don't have the spiritual richness I desire. Is it possible this meditation thing will help me to experience that. And, and. This business of work and blessing, obedience and blessing, I mean, it is true at a certain level. But when it comes to deeper, richer spiritual growth, it's what is described in section 93. It's grace for grace. It's learning how to receive, how to be open to the flow of sanctifying grace into our lives. It's not a mechanical keep 100 commandments and get 100 blessings. I mean, there are so many members of the church who have spent their lives being obedient and devoted and sacrificing, expecting certain outcomes. And they have a, you know, they lose a child or they lose a job or they lose a marriage and they want to know why. They start questioning themselves, maybe I didn't keep enough commandments. And they'll try to multiply the number of commandment keeping they need to do to get the extra blessing or they'll question God. They'll finally get bitter at God for not coming through with the blessings when they've done so much. It's just an immature form of spirituality that doesn't bring about the blessing of spiritual rebirth.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:05:34] Do you see this, what you refer to as an immature, this parent child relationship? Do you see this as something that members of the church are coming up with sort of in rogue fashion in spite of what church leaders are teaching? Or do you see this parent child relationship being encouraged by and taught by and promoted by church leaders?

Phil McLemore [00:06:06] Oh, it's encouraged and promoted. We love singing that song. I am a child of God. Lead me, guide me, walk beside me. That is the preferred image in Mormonism, this dependent relationship on God. And so we end up projecting onto the father, really a dysfunctional parent role. And we act like children, begging for blessings and promising to be good if we get a blessing. It's a very primitive form of spiritual interaction with God. And it ultimately is not satisfying at the soul level. And we promote it. We promote it. In our sacrament meeting today, the topic was Holy Ghost. And two of the brethren in our ward gave really good talks on the Holy Ghost. But as I, you know, looked at what was said, every example that they gave of the work of the Holy Spirit were examples that related to inspiration that either saved somebody's physical life, increased their activity in the church, caused a business deal to work well, so, you know, they're able to support their family. I mean, every example that was given in two talks related to blessings that are external in nature, that make mortal living more comfortable or more happy or increase their church activity. No one at any point talked about the work of the Holy Spirit being a purifying, sanctifying, regenerating force that developed Christlike nature within.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:08:09] When you are talking about purifying and sanctifying, obviously you view what that means as developing non attachment that the more we are able to let go, the more purified and sanctified we become. Is that right?

Phil McLemore [00:08:28] I mean, Jesus says whosoever. I'm paraphrasing here, whosoever loses his life, right, will find it and whoever finds it will lose it. Well, what life is he talking about? He's talking about ordinary normal human life needs and desires. When we try to cling to that and enhance that, our attention is diverted from this inner spiritual work that needs to take place. So we've got to be willing to lose that so that we can find it. The it being real spiritual life that reflects the essential nature of the soul.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:09:09] And so what's your proposal then? Obviously you're very disenchanted with the model of viewing and treating God like some sort of cosmic vending machine, where the coins we put in are our participation in activities and fulfillment of callings and obedience to certain commandments and and prophetic counsel and hopefully the little goody that falls down from the coiled stack rack is some business deal and whatnot going through. What's the alternative you're proposing to that and how do we get there?

Phil McLemore [00:09:50] Well, first of all, I'm not saying don't keep commandments and don't live in a moral, responsible way. I mean, the one thing we didn't talk about is that in the core yoga traditions it doesn't start with concentration and meditation. It starts with moral, responsible living. I mean, the core of yogic teaching starts with learning how to be honest, generous, kind, sexual control and fidelity. I mean, there is a basic. I mean an evil person, a chaotic, irresponsible, immature person is not going to be communing with God even if they meditate. There has to be that foundation of responsible, mature moral living. I mean, that's a given. And Mormons do that? Well, certainly in principle and in teaching. I mean, that foundation is laid in Mormonism Very well. What we're not doing is going beyond that, where rebirth of the soul takes place. So the question is, how do we begin to emphasize that. This might be. I hope this reading isn't too lengthy. If you look in section 84 where it talks about the Melchizedek priesthood, it points out that the purpose of it is to administer the gospel that holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. So that's the vision, the key of the mysteries. In other words, being able to experience that which is beyond what, beyond the function of ordinary human perception and come to this intimate knowledge of God. It then talks about how Moses plainly taught this to the children of Israel and sought diligently to sanctify his people that they might behold the face of God. I mean, that's the objective of spiritual living, to have a transformation where you become empowered to be able to behold the face of God. I mean, that's a phrase that just doesn't mean seeing the face of a resurrected being. But it means perceiving consciousness and existence and reality accurately and understanding your true nature and the presence and nature of God. It goes on to explain in section 84 that Israel hardened their hearts, the Lord's anger was kindled against them. And so he takes from their midst Moses and the higher priesthood and gives them a lesser priesthood, which is a preparatory gospel, which is a gospel of repentance and baptism and the law of carnal commandments. And the way this is normally taught is that the law of Moses was faith, repentance, baptism, carnal commandments, and the fullness of the gospel is faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift and ministry and function of the Holy Spirit. Well, you know, what is it we are doing in the modern church? It looks like to me we have simply recreated a new system of carnal commandments. It's in this structure of I obey this commandment, I get that blessing, I obey that commandment, I get that blessing. We try to pile up enough blessings so we get into the kingdom. It's very mechanical and it's very external. For heaven's sakes. We studied John 3 today, the story of Nicodemus in Sunday school. So here's Nicodemus, a Pharisee. The Pharisees were the experts and external commandment keeping and external obedience to the law. And he comes to Jesus because he senses something richer. And the first words out of Jesus mouth talk about being born again and talk about the process of inner regeneration and spiritual rebirth. And we're just not doing much of that. We're focused on our brand of kind of a law of Moses, a law of carnal commandments, external obedience and hoped for blessing, as opposed to seeking the inner regeneration of the Holy Spirit, which is the promise of the fullness of the gospel.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:14:49] There's a quote I like in your essay where you try to define or explain non attachment in positive terms. We've talked a lot about, about letting go. But you also explain that conversely you could describe non attachment as being filled or fulfilled. And this is what you say. Non attachment is not trying to become detached from something, but rather being so fulfilled in our relationship with God that we feel less neediness and dependency on outside forms, people and things and situations for our well being. And you quote the Scripture, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. You quote Christ's words that he's the living water, he who drinks of it shall never thirst. Again, I was hoping you could expound on that.

Phil McLemore [00:15:50] Yeah, again, It's this inner work that's not being done. When the inner work is done, then there is fulfillment. I mean, when you know.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:16:06] I'm sorry, just to be clear for our listeners, what do you mean by inner work?

Phil McLemore [00:16:11] The work of getting, of letting go of external attachments, of focusing attention and awareness on who and what I really am, who and what God really is. And this inner work of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the work of purifying our nature so that we become increasingly capable of, of seeing the face of God, of discerning the presence of God and the nature of God. I mean this. Be ye therefore perfect even, which is, you know, we quote that all the time. Be ye therefore perfect even as my Father, which is in heaven. I mean, that word perfect doesn't mean an ideal human being who doesn't burp at the dinner table. It means wholeness, completeness, fullness, spiritual maturity. I mean, for heaven's sakes, in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says, when I was a child, I spake as a child, thought as a child, however it goes. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. I see this model that we're using as being childish as opposed to the maturity of wholeness and fullness which comes from the work of the Holy Spirit and not keeping a string of, of carnal commandments. I mean, when the heart is purified, you don't have to worry about commandments. When the heart is purified, you naturally do the things that are in harmony with divine nature. And there is no need to be attached to external things for your sense of well being. And again, the people, things and circumstances of your lives then become opportunities for expressing the fullness and the joy and the love of God rather than things that we have to, have to feel. Okay,

Andrew Ainsworth [00:18:14] I guess the challenge is, to me, the key words you said there is when the heart is purified, you don't need commandments. And I guess A lot of folks would say, well, Phil, how do I know when my heart is purified? Isn't that why I need commandments? Isn't that why I need standards? Isn't that why I need programs and activities, is to help tell me when I'm purified? I mean, isn't that one of the purposes of the Temple Recommend interview is to provide a standard or a measuring stick for me to determine whether I've arrived at an appropriate state of spiritual development? I guess what I'm wondering is how does someone know when they've achieved the state of spiritual purification that you're talking about, where they no longer need commandments?

Phil McLemore [00:19:14] In Mormonism, we treat commandment keeping, and primarily carnal commandment keeping, as the end of the road, as the end game, so to speak, when in fact, the purpose of the Commandments is to stabilize our lives, our relationship with the world and the people around us, so that in that degree of stability and maturity, we can then invite into our lives the presence of God and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit and have this. What's Described in section 93. Again, this model of spiritual progression being one of grace, grace to grace, grace for grace. This might sound a little strange, but. It dawned on me a couple of years ago that in the Christmas story, the central figure there is the Virgin Mary. And that the Virgin Mary is really the ultimate symbol of the process of spiritual growth. And, you know, when we come into this world and partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we lose our virginity. Whether this experience of gaining an intimate knowledge of good and evil, it wasn't taught to us from a book. We are literally immersed in good and evil to the point where in the book of Moses it talks about evil is conceived in our hearts because that's the world that we've been immersed in. And so we have this interplay of good and evil not only around us in the world, but also within us. And whether it's through our own sinfulness or whether it's the impact of the sins and ignorance of others, in that process, we lose our virginity, we lose our purity. And from my point of view, one of the purposes of the Commandments is to help restore virginity. Now, again, I'm going to give you a mystical interpretation here. I hope it doesn't sound too strange. But, you know, God has intercourse, and I mean spiritual intercourse with virgins. That's the symbol of the Virgin Mary. So this commandment keeping business is a way to begin structuring our lives. So that we detach ourselves from those things that are ungodly, sinful, if you will. And we start doing things that reflect the nature of Christ. It's a way of restoring virginity to so that we're prepared to then begin to receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And the idea in this image of Mary is to have our virginity restored to at least a level where we can receive the seed of the Father. We receive something of the Father that fertilizes. Do you say divine nature? That's already within our spirits, it activates it. And then that Christ nature within us begins to unfold. And so this image of Mary having the Christ child within her is the image of us having the nature of Christ gestating, growing and developing within us to the point where we give full birth to Christ, image Christ's nature as our nature and keeping commandments as we teach it is part of the process, but it's the beginning, it's the preparatory phase of the process. It's this receiving of the Holy Ghost. That's a fascinating word. How do I receive the ministry of the Holy Ghost? Well, it's by letting go of our normal ordinary attachments. It's by finding ways to live in the present moment and sense the reality of spiritual presence. It's learning how to commune with the spirit so that there is this inner transformation and birth of Christ consciousness that seems to be the element that doesn't receive much emphasis. So why are people bored? Why are people feeling spiritually stagnated? See, they've done the preparatory work, but there's little encouragement to go beyond that. That activity is supposed to be completely validating and it's just proving not to put the soul at rest.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:24:32] So it sounds like what you're saying overall is Mormonism provides the goal of spiritual transformation, but in your experience or in your estimation, Mormonism is not presently doing an adequate job in teaching members of the church and guiding members of the church to the how to experience that spiritual transformation. In other words, that Mormonism is setting the goal of spiritual transformation. But you have discovered, through Eastern practices and through meditation specifically, and the ideas of non attachment, these other sorts of principles that have their genesis in. Well, who knows if it's where their genesis is, but you certainly find them heavily in Eastern, Eastern religions. But you also find them abundantly, you say, in the New Testament and Christ's teachings, if we properly understand them. It sounds to me like you're saying that although Mormonism has the goal of spiritual transformation, we've maybe lost the how to or maybe we've never quite had it, but you have found it in these concepts and practices we've been talking about.

Phil McLemore [00:26:01] That is a fair summary of what I'm saying.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:26:09] I'm intrigued by this quote that you have, or the statement, rather, on page 41 of the Yoga of Christ, where you say, sorry, that page number is not to the essay, it's to the magazine where you say. You talk about how we define spirituality in terms of having a spiritual experience. For example, if I go to a fireside and the speaker says something that really resonates with me and I feel the spirit, as we would commonly say, that I have just had a spiritual experience and that that is what spirituality is, having spiritual experience. Saying that that is not a proper understanding of true spirituality. And the quote is, you say our spiritual experiences are windows into the true nature of our being. And I was wondering if you could expand on that a bit.

Phil McLemore [00:27:16] Yeah. See, most members of the church live for spiritual experiences. And having regular spiritual experiences is the greatest fulfillment that most members of the church experience. Spiritual experiences are wonderful. Again, I went around asking people, tell me what it is like when you have a spiritual experience. And of course, I listed that in the article. And people talked about enveloping feelings of peace, love and joy. Having no fear, no need, no desire to do evil, but only good. Problems and worries seeming external and unimportant. An absence of hard feeling toward others. A sense that forgiveness could now be offered when you couldn't offer it before. A sense of wholeness and completeness and satisfaction. A sense of oneness with God, with self, with others, with creation, a sense of lightness. I mean, these are the kinds of things that people reported to me when they were describing the. Their spiritual experiences. Now, after the spiritual experience, did they feel that way the next day? Well, the answer is no. It was an experience that passed. And this is the difference between a state of being and a stage of being. So, frankly, I see these spiritual experiences as windows into the true nature of our being. For that moment of the experience glimpsing the true nature of our soul, we're getting a glimpse of what our relationship with God and with others and what creation should really be like. It passes because that's not what we are established in. You see, we've had a moment of illumination, a moment of spiritual connection, and we get this flow of these wonderful experiences. I've described the goal of spiritual rebirth, the goal of this inner work, is to change that experience, that state, into a stage. In other words, it has now Become a level of spiritual development where I feel that way most of the time, maybe all of the time. At some point, you see, rebirth has taken place. Because now that is my normal state of being, not a passing experience now and then.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:29:41] Okay? And you know, I'm thinking again, if I think about how I would have responded to you 10 years ago, and by the way, I'm throwing that out just because that was before I really started embarking on any sort of study of serious study of Eastern spiritual traditions. And so I think I had more of a skepticism and a guarded defensive stance towards them. But I think I might respond. I might have responded by saying something like, in the church, they do a plenty good job of guiding us to spirituality through this active path. They teach us to do our home teaching. And when I do my home teaching, I feel the spirit. They tell us to go to sacrament meeting. And when I do that, I feel the spirit. They tell me to go to gospel doctrine and priesthood. When I do, I feel the spirit. They tell me to go to the temple, and when I do, I feel the spirit. They tell me to go serve people and give blessings and, and whatnot. And when I do all of that, I feel the spirit. And so, you know, Phil, I feel like on my path of active Mormonism, and when I say active, I mean both figurative and literal, you know, that very active, action oriented, commandment keeping path. I feel plenty spiritual. And isn't it possible that maybe it's not that you've identified the path, meaning this more restful path of meditation, but you've just found a different path or another path to spirituality that's worked for you? In other words, do you see what I'm getting at? That maybe some people might feel like they need and want and benefit from this very active path. And so it's equally valid because I think some listeners might, I think maybe correctly so, perceive what you're saying as a bit of a critique of the active path? Or in other words, saying that the active path is good and it's necessary, at least in the initial stages, but that it's ultimately immature and not fully developed. How would you respond to that?

Phil McLemore [00:32:29] Well, there needs to be a balance between inner work and outer expression. I mean, what do we learn from the Martha and Mary story in the New Testament? I mean, Martha is clearly representing the service, hard work, doing, activity path.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:32:53] I thought it was Martha. It's more important to go to the fireside than to stay home and make dinner for your family. Did I miss the point?

Phil McLemore [00:33:07] I'm Getting hungry. I'm getting hungry. That's sounding pretty good.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:33:12] Yeah.

Phil McLemore [00:33:13] I mean, Martha clearly represents this activity, typical Mormon sort of way. And you've got Mary who is sitting at the feet of Jesus, who just wants to be in his presence and to experience this kind of inner soul nourishment that comes from being in his presence. Now what's fascinating is you've got Martha seeing Mary as lazy, neglectful, maybe even sinful. And of course she tattles to Jesus thinking Jesus is going to support her and put Mary to work. But he doesn't do that. He validates what Martha is doing. You know, okay, this needs to be done. But what, I forget the exact wording, but she in essence has chosen the, the good part or the better part, whatever the wording is. The point is external activity fulfills the purposes of God purely and fully when it comes out of a soul or out of a heart that is in union and communion with God. And that isn't going to take place unless that inner work is accomplished. So there needs to be a balance between those two things. I'm not advocating somebody sit in a cave and meditate 24 hours a day and not be serving. There needs to be that balance between the inner work and then the external activity. I'm just going to say this is clearly taught in the Book of Mormon, in the Doctrine and Covenants in the New Testament. I mean, this isn't something that's foreign to Mormon scripture. I mean if you look in sections 67, 84, 88, 93, this vision is clearly there. We just for whatever reason haven't emphasized how the inner work is to be done, the teachings there, the vision's there, we just haven't developed the mechanics of it as well as some of the Eastern traditions have.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:35:40] I think it's worth pointing out that these Eastern spiritual traditions that we've been discussing arose before Jesus was born. Hinduism we are talking about in the thousands BC Buddhism helped me out. Is it around 600 BC?

Phil McLemore [00:36:08] About 500 BC?

Andrew Ainsworth [00:36:10] Okay, about 500 BC. And you talk about the yoga of Christ and Christ's teaching, these concepts of non attachment that we would now really associate with Eastern traditions. Have you through any sort of study or research uncovered any hints or evidence that Christ. Came into contact with Eastern thought? The only things that I can think of are that in Scripture is it talks about wise men coming from the east and associates the east with wisdom. But beyond that, I'm kind of at a loss to, to identify any evidence that Christ was influenced by these Eastern traditions. What are your thoughts about that?

Phil McLemore [00:37:28] Well, the evidence is scant. There are traditions in India that during that period of time from 12 years old to when Jesus started his ministry, where was he? What was he doing? There are traditions that he did go to India, that he did go to other, what we would call Eastern areas and was instructed and taught in these ancient, what we would call Eastern teachings. There are one or two books that purport to record traditions of this Jesus person. Learning from these sages and so forth. Whether that's true or not, I don't have a clue. And it's not even necessary because many philosophers have used the term perennial philosophy to describe some core truths that have been taught in every culture throughout history. It is the same truth is revealed to people who come into communion with God. There's no question that Jesus lived in divine consciousness. If he learned stuff at a young age from Eastern masters, so be it. But in his own communion with God, he would have had these same things revealed to him anyway. Frankly, Jesus is unique. There's nothing unique in the teachings of Jesus. Anything and everything that Jesus taught you can find in traditions that predate his birth and ministry. Nothing unique in the teachings. What's unique about Jesus is that the combination of teaching, the events of his life, the symbols of his life, reveal the nature of the spiritual path more clearly and more dramatically than any other spiritual teacher that I'm aware of. And I deal with some of that in the article. As far as a mystical interpretation of the story in the Garden of Eden and the story of his crucifixion and resurrection and so forth, there are mystical understandings of those events that reveal in the most profound way these essential truths that have been referred to by many philosophers as the perennial philosophy. That's why I said once I. The crisis for me was resolved when I realized that in Christ all that I had learned in Eastern traditions, you can find fulfillment in him once the teachings are understood in their richness.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:40:38] Yeah. What you've just said triggers a question in my mind. If we take the New Testament as historical, or at least based on historical kernels of truth, one of the big questions that arises for me is what was Christ doing for 40 days in the wilderness before he began his ministry? I think it says to be with God. How would he have been with God? What would have been his spiritual practice? Do you think it is possible that Christ had a meditative practice?

Phil McLemore [00:41:25] Yeah, I mentioned that in the article too. I mean, it's clear from the New Testament that he gets up early in the morning and goes out in the mountains alone to pray. We read in another place where he's up all night in prayer. I mean, that is the pattern of ancient yogis. Or what do we think Jesus was doing out there? Do we really believe that he was up early in the morning every morning, or up all night in prayer doing the typical sort of thanks for the food and thanks for I got 10 apostles, I need two more. Here's three names. Which one should I pick? I mean, do we really think he's going through that kind of mental activity hour after hour, day after day in his prayer? See, again, we've limited our notion of what prayer is, is to this verbal interchange. Prayer, there is an appropriate place to pray for things you need, for things you desire, for the welfare of others. But prayer in its richest expression is communion, communion with God. If you think and sit and ponder what Jesus would have been doing out there for hours. I mean, I just think it's obvious he was doing more than having a dialogue. He was literally in the presence of the Father, becoming one with the Father, communication, communing with the Father. And that is reflected in the richness, the power of his teachings and his presence.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:43:14] And so, just to summarize your yoga of Christ article, maybe we can return to the original jumping off point of this discussion where he said that you were reading these scriptures and realized when he says, my yoke, take my yoke upon you. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. And you interpreted yoke as meaning yoga. And yoga means union. Summarize for us then, what does it mean to be united with. To be yoked with Christ? What is the yoga of Christ?

Phil McLemore [00:44:03] Yeah, see, and for good reasons, we normally interpret being yoked with Christ as one of two things. Either he's going to be with us as we bear these. I didn't mention this. I mentioned before talking with people, respected people in the church. And they all described to me their life burdens. And they all said to me, even though I'm having all of these difficulties and complications and problems, I'm going to face these with faith and with prayer and with hope. And I'm going to endure to the end. What they described was a mature, responsible, faithful way of dealing with life's difficulties. And you have to admire that because it's honorable. It's just not what Jesus is saying here. Do you see? He's talking about rest and lightness. If you take his yoke upon you. See, we normally interpret this yoke business as he's going to join in there with us and either strengthen us to bear those burdens or take that weight off of us. And there is scriptural justification for that point of view. But I think the deeper understanding here is that it is not his intent to help us bear the nonsensical, ignorant burdens of our lives. In other words, our ego problems, our attachments to things to meet psychological and emotional needs. It's not his goal to sustain us in that sort of surface external work. His being yoked with Christ is joining him in the inner work of the Holy Spirit. That's what makes it light. Because you see again, when people are in the midst of spiritual experience, they don't feel burdened, they don't have fear, they don't have excessive desires. They have a sense of communion and wholeness and peace. And so to be yoked with Christ, to practice the yoga of Christ, is to join him in God communion. It's to be transformed in your nature so that you're identified and fulfilled with God and in God and not trying to meet your needs by the things of the world. And then he says, you will find rest unto your soul. So what is that rest? That rest is awakening into conscious awareness of the true nature of your own soul, the true nature of God and his immediate presence and love and peace and joy. That's rest. When you can have that experience, that is the rest of the Lord. And that's the purpose of the gospel.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:47:08] And you quote a verse from the Upanishads, and again Upanishads, for those who are not familiar with them are boy. And I used to know what the word Upanishads meant. I think it might just be wise sayings, I think is the translation. And these are scriptures in Hinduism that are so old and they just don't honestly know who wrote them or even when, but they suspect it was somewhere out in the 2000 B.C. and before that, if I recall correctly. But you quote one of the Upanishads and it says, like the sharp edge of a razor, the sages say, is the path narrow? It is, and difficult to tread. And you point out the similarity of that Upanishad to Christ's statement that narrow is the gate and difficult is the way, and there are few who find it. And I know that just speaking from personal experience and speaking from speaking to many other members of the LDS Church, that it seems like a common understanding of that is often institutional in focus, that the way is narrow. Well, I mean, let's think about it out of the 6 billion people on the planet, about 0.2% are on the records of the LDS Church, about 66 to 75% of whom are inactive. And so you've already got a pretty narrow way, a very narrow group of people involved in the path. And that returning to the presence of God, being able to pass angels standing as sentinels requires you to receive special ordinances, LDS ordinances, that are performed by the authority. Again, that is held by less than 0.2% of the world's population. And that might be an understanding of what it means for the way to be a narrow way. You know, this one true church that's relatively obscure in most parts of the world, but you're providing a very different interpretation of narrow is the way. Why don't you talk about that?

Phil McLemore [00:50:05] Yeah, well, of course, the King James is straight as the gate narrows the way. That's actually a poor translation. Better Bible translations reflect the wording of the Upanishad, which narrows the gate. And difficult is the way. Yeah. We take a basic Mormon perspective and then we impose it on that scripture for interpretive purposes. Why is it narrow and difficult? It's narrow and difficult because. Our attention is directed outward into a material world. We've lost our true identity. We've lost our spiritual awareness in a material realm. In a material world. And we try to meet our needs in that realm rather than by again finding this inner path, which is narrow and difficult. And it's narrow and difficult because it requires us, as Jesus says, to forsake all things, to lose our lives that we might find them. That's why it's narrow and difficult, because we are hesitant to do that. We cling to what seems to be sure that we can put our hands on in a concrete way.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:51:45] So it seems like maybe a good example would be Christ and the young rich man where he says, well, you lack one thing. Sell everything you have and follow me. And he won't let go of that attachment. He won't follow him. Is that more of what you're saying, by the narrowness of the way?

Phil McLemore [00:52:05] Well, yeah, and of course, we interpret that as. Well, that was just for him, not us. That was a particular test for him. I can still hang on to my stuff, See?

Andrew Ainsworth [00:52:17] Or it might be used in a talk to encourage us to pay tithing and a generous fast offering.

Phil McLemore [00:52:26] Yeah. Which is. Okay. The point is, by ancient standards, most of us are extraordinarily wealthy. We all fall under this condemnation of it's harder for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Again, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is within. So what is it that is keeping us from discovering this kingdom of God within? We have all these members of the church feeling inadequate and deficient. And Jesus is saying the kingdom of God is within us. Unlimited joy and peace and eternal riches are within our own souls. And few there be that are finding that because our attention is focused outward because of all the things that we're attached to externally. And so, yes, in the Bhagavad Gita it says, out of a thousand one will seek. Out of a thousand who seek, one will find. Well, it reinforces this notion that discovering the mysteries of the kingdom and having the face of God unveiled to you as the Doctrine and Covenants talks about it is a narrow and difficult way. It's just because few are willing to let go of the external and do the inner work. I think that's the richer meaning of the narrow way.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:54:10] Thanks for summarizing that in a moment. I'm going to going to give you a moment to share your testimony. John Dehlin always likes to do that to finish off the interviews. And so I want to just kind of give you a heads up to collect your thoughts for that. And again, I just want to thank you for coming on to Mormon Stories, for sharing your life experience with meditation, your your testimony about how it's helped you experience the spiritual transformation that you had long sought but were frustrated in achieving, and for giving us all some guidance and advice on how we might embark on that practice if we wish to as well. I have one question that I know, I have a few friends I know will probably be wanting me to ask you, and it's this. For those individuals who have a more naturalistic view and understanding of the universe and life and themselves, the reason I ask this is that we've been talking about this based on the assumption that there is a sort of supernatural realm. We've been talking about concepts like the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, Christ, you know, not just the, you know, Jesus of Nazareth, the historical person, or who we, you know, certainly hope was a historical person, but you know, Jesus Christ, the Savior and redeemer of mankind, and God our Father. We've been assuming the existence of all of these beings and this supernatural realm of existence. I'm wondering for those people who might take a more naturalistic view of life, can they benefit from meditation practice? In other words, do you how necessary do you believe it is for someone to believe in a supernatural realm of existence in order to experience the benefits of meditation that you've been talking about tonight?

Phil McLemore [00:56:41] That's a good question. Meditation is going to benefit people regardless of their beliefs. Many of the fruits of meditation are governed by a person's intent. A pure intent helps focus and direct meditation. A lot of times if people meditate strictly for stress reduction and relaxation and improved health, they get the blessings of stress reduction, improved and improved health. And they might not necessarily have spiritual realizations that they don't expect. But in my case, I was meditating for. I mean, I had an inner desire for spiritual development, but when I started meditation, it was strictly for pain management and stress reduction. I noticed the spiritual unfolding along the way. So I don't know that it really matters what people believe. If they've devoted themselves to an efficient and effective meditation practice, then I think they're going to experience states of awareness that open up to them the world of spirit. Now you say naturalistic. You take Einstein, who was one of the greatest physicists on our planet, and he called materialism a superstition simply because the material world is an artifact of our very limited perceptual capabilities. An atom, the building block of matter, is mostly space. Well, that's not how we experience it. We experience it. It is hard and dense. We know that's not the reality of it at all. A strict materialist literally has been deceived by an illusion and is living under a superstition. It's clearly the world of spirit that is real. Materialism didn't produce consciousness. It's consciousness that is a characteristic of spirit that produced the material world. So the ground level of being is spirit. The ground level of existence is consciousness. And that's what you awaken to through some sort of meditation practice.

Andrew Ainsworth [00:59:23] Okay, thanks for that explanation. This is that opportunity. Then again, I just want to thank you for coming on to Mormon stories. Now is the time that like to give you the opportunity to give your testimony, to leave us with any parting thoughts. If you want to make or emphasize a point that you don't feel you were able to earlier or anything else you want to throw out there that wasn't elicited through my questioning, why don't you just go ahead and take that opportunity now?

Phil McLemore [01:00:04] Okay, well, I don't have too much at this point, and we could talk another six or seven hours easily. But. What I have gained from this whole process is an experiential awareness of the. Presence and nature of God. A loving, kind, inviting presence, as opposed to a judgmental, parental Figure. My experience of God is, is the Father in the prodigal Son story. He's welcoming. He's rushing out to me. He's accepting me. He's embracing me, he's nourishing me. That is my experience of God in my contemplative prayer and meditation. I believe. I believe. That's wheat. I have had the experience of my own soul as being made in the image of God. There's wholeness within me, there's goodness within me, there's purity within me. And to the extent that I can receive this regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, to the extent that I can literally follow Jesus into oneness with the Father as He explains in John 17, then I can experience the wholeness and joy that he experienced by being one with the Father. I mean, that's the experience that I have. And it is available for all of us. There is the same spiritual potential within each human being. No one need feel deficient or inadequate or, or unworthy. In the final analysis, we can all move forward with hope and faith. And I really believe that what emanates from God is a flow of grace. And by grace I mean his invitation, his love, his drawing toward him, his sanctifying influence and power that is always flowing out outward. And the inner path is literally about opening ourselves to be able to receive that so that Christ nature develops within us. And we, as he did, experience that oneness with the Father. So that's been my experience on this path. And I have great hope that this can be experienced by everyone because it is the potential and destiny of every soul, of every child of God. So I pray for that and wish for that for everyone.

Andrew Ainsworth [01:03:23] Thanks, Phil. I understand you are a meditation instructor now, and I don't think we mentioned earlier you are in Utah. If people want to be able to reach you or join you in person for meditation practice, where can they find you?

Phil McLemore [01:03:51] Anyone can email me@Abbaomahoo.com so that's ABBA, the Aramaic word that Jesus used for Father, coupled with the classic Om from the yoga tradition. So you see the union of this for me, but it's abbaomahoo.com and you know, just let me know what your desires and needs are and I'll try to meet those. I'm doing a little bit of writing right now. Last year I did a ton of seminars and workshops. I've done fewer this year, but people that really are desirous and interested seem to be able to easily convince me to set up workshops and seminars. So just email me and let me know.

Andrew Ainsworth [01:04:52] Good deal. Thank you. That's very generous and trusting to put your email address out there like that. So thanks a lot, Phil, and thanks again for coming on to Mormon Stories.

Phil McLemore [01:05:05] I appreciate your thoughtfulness and interest.

Andrew Ainsworth [01:05:09] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories Podcast. To discuss this podcast with others, please check us out@mormonstories.org to keep the podcast alive or to join our support community, please consider a tax deductible donation today@mormonstories.org music for this podcast was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. The Mormon Stories logo was generously provided by studiocase.com thank you for listening.

Phil McLemore [01:05:45] Be across that

Andrew Ainsworth [01:05:51] still all my song

Andrew Ainsworth [01:05:53] shall be Nearer my go to thee,

Phil McLemore [01:05:58] Nearer my go to thee Nearer to thee. Sam.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.