Know Thyself

E206 - Jahnavi Harrison: Living a Life of Devotion & Embracing Your Voice

Jahnavi Harrison is a Grammy-nominated artist, musician, and practitioner of Bhakti Yoga who has spent her life exploring sound as a path to the divine. Raised at Bhaktivedanta Manor in England, she grew up inside one of the world's most dedicated devotional communities, and in this conversation we trace how that formation shaped her relationship with voice, identity, approval, and what it means to offer your life as a prayer.What We Dive Into:1. Most of us were told at some point to be quiet, to sound better, or to wait until we were good enough. That conditioning runs deep. Reclaiming the voice, whether through kirtan, song, or simply speaking truthfully, is one of the most direct paths back to a self that stopped performing and started expressing.2. Bhakti is not a feeling you arrive at and maintain. It is a daily offering, something you return to moment by moment, especially when you have drifted. Jahnavi's framing is simple: make space for prayer in whatever form feels alive to you, and that space will become a source of nourishment that compounds over time.3. The desire to be accepted can masquerade as discernment, as wisdom, even as calling. Jahnavi traces how much of her own journey involved slowly distinguishing the voice of genuine inner knowing from the much louder voice that simply wanted to be liked. That distinction is not resolved once. It is worked on for life.Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:https://www.timeline.com/KNOWTHYSELF Save 20% off your Mitopure® Gummieshttps://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyselfUse code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off sitewide___________00:00 Intro01:36 What Devotional Music Actually Is03:12 Sound as a Direct Path to the Divine06:42 Sound as the First and Last Sense09:15 The Sensitivity of Sound and Its Transformative Power12:28 Why We Lose Our Voices: Fear, Shame, and the Voice Unsung16:22 Finding Your Voice and Speaking Your Truth20:17 Discerning Your Own Voice from the Noise of Others23:46 The Missed Flight: Choosing Calling Over Convention29:00 Life as an Offering: Dharma and Letting Go of Outcomes31:54 The Intelligence of the Heart in Bhakti36:22 Nature, Silence, and the Inner Life42:39 Prayer vs. Meditation: Are They the Same?48:32 Prayer as Relationship, Not Request57:54 Kirtan, Mantra, and the Dissolution of Self1:03:25 Kirtan at a Funeral: Sound as Communal Holding1:06:15 Losing and Reclaiming Faith: The Reckoning with Tradition1:13:33 The Role of Trusted Counsel Through Doubt1:15:28 The Grammys and the Tension of Devotional Art in Industry1:21:37 Fame, Ego, and Staying on the Right Track1:25:40 Expanding Beyond Tradition: The Rise Album with Willow1:35:36 Art as Revolution and Service1:38:31 The Coldplay Concert and the Power of Mass Gathering1:43:17 Current Projects and Dreaming Bigger1:51:37 Closing Message: Make Space for Prayer Every Day___________✨MORE FROM JAHNAVI↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jahnavi_harrison↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/JahnaviHarrisonMusic↳https://www.jahnavimusic.com📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

E205 - Anil Seth: Your Perception of Reality & Self Is a Hallucination

Anil Seth is a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex and one of the world's leading researchers on consciousness. His central claim is both unsettling and liberating: we do not passively receive reality, we actively generate it. The world that appears when you open your eyes is not a transparent window onto what is actually out there. It is the brain's best guess, a controlled hallucination, built from the inside out.What We Dive Into:1. Your brain is not reading out the world like a camera. It is making constant predictions about what is out there and updating them with sensory signals. What you perceive is much more a product of those internal predictions than of the raw sensory data coming in. In that sense, all perception is a form of hallucination, just one that happens to be grounded in reality.2. Just as the brain generates a model of the external world, it generates a model of the self. The feeling of being a continuous, stable "I" is another best guess, not a fixed essence waiting to be discovered. This is both humbling and freeing, because a constructed self can be examined and updated in ways a fixed one cannot.3. As AI systems grow more sophisticated, they will increasingly appear to have inner lives. Anil draws a sharp line between intelligence and consciousness, arguing that current AI lacks the biological, embodied, self-regulating properties that we believe underlie genuine experience. Confusing performance for presence is not just a philosophical error. It shapes regulation, design, and how we treat these systems.Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:https://www.im8health.com/knowthyselfcode KNOWTHYSELF for an exclusive offerhttps://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyselfcode KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off sitewide___________00:00 Intro01:47 We Don't Perceive the World — We Generate It04:29 The Brain as a Prediction Machine07:22 Controlled Hallucination: What That Term Really Means09:37 Reality Is Real, But We Never Perceive It Directly13:25 Optical Illusions as Windows Into Perception16:42 Perceptual Humility and Echo Chambers19:34 The Perception Census: Mapping Our Inner Diversity25:24 Perception, Priors, and Personal Suffering29:17 Memory, Identity, and What We Expect to See33:19 The Minimum of Consciousness: Bare Awareness38:15 Pure Consciousness and the Feeling of Being Alive41:51 Can the Contents of Experience Tell Us About Consciousness?45:46 Out of Body Experiences and the First-Person Perspective50:31 Psychedelics, Reality, and the Sense of Realness57:12 Anil's LSD Experience and Mary's Room1:03:47 Defining Consciousness: Nagel's "What Is It Like"1:07:25 The Distribution of Consciousness: Animals, Trees, and AI1:17:27 Steel-Manning Panpsychism1:21:09 Pragmatic Materialism1:34:23 Intelligence vs. Consciousness: Why AI Is Different1:38:17 Why Current AI Is Probably Not Conscious1:43:53 The Danger of Believing AI Is Conscious1:49:24 What Happens When We Take the Self Too Seriously1:52:01 Reflections on Death and What Dies1:57:34 The Self as Process, Not Essence2:02:00 Free Will as a Useful Perception2:05:43 Closing Message: Celebrate the Everyday Miracle of Consciousness___________✨MORE FROM ANIL SETH↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/profanilseth/↳Books: https://www.anilseth.com/read/books/↳https://www.anilseth.com📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

E204 – Dr. William Li: The Body's 5 Health Defense Systems, Cancer, Microplastics & Healing From the Inside Out

Dr. William Li is a Harvard-trained physician, co-founder of the Angiogenesis Foundation, and New York Times bestselling author whose work centers on one quietly radical premise: the power to stay healthy lives inside you. In this conversation, we explore the five hardwired defense systems the body runs continuously, angiogenesis, stem cells, the gut microbiome, immunity, and DNA protection, and what it looks like to actually support them through food, sleep, and daily choices.What We Dive Into:1. You are not just one organism. You carry 39 trillion bacteria inside you, many of which send signals up through the vagus nerve directly to the brain, shaping mood, social behavior, and stress levels.2. Your body was born with 70 million extra stem cells stored in bone marrow, ready to mobilize and repair damage whenever called. Sleep, food, and metabolic health directly influence how effectively they do their job.3. The environment is full of things we cannot fully control, microplastics, toxins, pollution. What we can control is whether our internal defense systems are strong enough to handle the load. Chronic stress degrades those systems faster than most environmental exposures.Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyselfTry LMNT & get a free sample pack https://oneskin.co/KNOWTHYSELFCode KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off___________00:00 Intro01:42 Health Is Not the Absence of Disease05:24 The Five Health Defense Systems07:14 Defense 1: Angiogenesis and Blood Vessel Health09:07 Defense 2: Stem Cells and the Body's Repair System14:01 Defense 3: The Gut Microbiome and the Holobiont21:38 Defense 4: The Immune System as Inner Army31:44 Defense 5: DNA Repair and the Iron Dome Within36:48 Cancer Is Growing in All of Us Right Now43:07 The Rising Cancer Rates and Why They're Skewing Younger47:40 Microplastics: Where They Come From and Why They Matter55:37 The Case for Keeping Your Shields Up59:15 Practical Steps: Air, Water, and Food Quality1:07:46 Sleep, Movement, and Stress as Health Defenses1:11:04 The Danger of Chronic Overeating1:19:09 The History of Abundance and the Clean Plate Myth1:23:43 Bruce Lee and the Philosophy of Personalized Health1:29:00 What Modern Medicine Got Right and What It Lost1:32:42 The Interstitium, Acupuncture, and Converging Worlds1:35:34 The Future of Cancer Treatment and Health Span1:44:42 Dr. Li's Favorite Foods and Why He Loves Them1:55:53 The Science of Dark Chocolate1:59:00 Closing Message: Optimize Your Gut___________✨MORE FROM DR. WILLIAM LI↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drwilliamli/↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drwilliamli/↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrWilliamLi↳Eat to Beat Your Diet Book: https://drwilliamli.com/etb-diet-book/↳Eat to Beat Disease Book: https://drwilliamli.com/book-li/↳https://drwilliamli.com📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

E203 - Dr. Justin Sledge: The Occult, Witch Trials & the Forbidden Teachings of Gnosticism

Dr. Justin Sledge is a scholar of philosophy and Western esotericism, and the voice behind the YouTube channel Esoterica, which has grown to over a million subscribers. He has spent his career studying the traditions that history tried to erase: Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, witchcraft, and alchemy.What We Dive Into:1. Classical skepticism is not about debunking or disbelief. It is about bracketing your personal investment long enough to let the material speak for itself. 2. Newton wrote more on alchemy and the occult than on calculus. Descartes arrived at his famous method through a mystical dream. Stripping these facts from the story of modernity has cost us access to some of the most important spiritual technologies ever developed.3. Every other starting point, certainty, comfort, doctrine, conclusions, has a gutter waiting at the end of it. Awe keeps the garden of curiosity alive.Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:https://www.im8health.com/knowthyselfcode KNOWTHYSELF for an exclusive offerhttps://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyselfcode KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off___________00:00 Intro01:57 What Skepticism Actually Means06:21 How to Enter Mystical Inquiry Without Collapsing Into Belief08:03 Religion, Mysticism, and the Margins11:24 Gnosticism: The World as Prison, Christ as Liberator14:21 The Nag Hammadi Discovery and the Many Christianities17:00 William James and the Four Qualities of Mystical Experience21:50 Perennial Wisdom vs. High-Resolution Differences26:44 The Limits of Propositional Truth31:32 Irrational vs. Non-Rational: Why the Distinction Matters37:10 The Danger of Universalizing Mystical Experience44:34 The World Is Stranger Than We Assume51:01 How the Myth of Rational Modernity Was Curated59:35 Recovering the Suppressed Voices of Western History1:00:45 Mary Magdalene: Not a Prostitute1:14:22 The Suppression of the Feminine and the Road to the Witch Trials1:18:55 The Malleus Maleficarum and the Anatomy of a Moral Panic1:24:01 Poverty, Not Practice: Who Was Actually Accused1:26:27 The Books Justin Brought: Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy1:32:08 Agrippa and the Possibility of Induced Illumination1:41:32 The Kabbalah and the Sefer Yetzirah1:46:04 The Hermetic Tradition and Hermes Trismegistus1:54:22 What Studying These Texts Has Done to Justin1:59:51 Agrippa's Trilemma and the Limits of Reason2:04:22 Hermeticism vs. Gnosticism: The World as Divine, Not Prison2:13:11 Making the Best Case for the Transcendent Realm2:19:54 Whatever Matter Is, It's Indistinguishable from Spirit2:26:34 Justin's Personal Satanic Panic: The School Shooting2:38:03 Generational Trauma and the Suppression of the Feminine2:44:57 Truth as a Verb: Dialogue Across Difference2:47:14 Are We on the Threshold of a New Renaissance?2:58:39 Community Questions: The Most Meaningful Experience of Magic2:59:15 When Justin Realized the Books Were Real3:03:51 Finding the Clerical Necromantic Underground3:04:26 Recreating Alchemy in the Modern Lab3:07:11 Why We Want Magic: The Very Human Desire for Hidden Power3:13:00 Modern Mythology and the Meaning Famine3:20:10 Closing Message: Flourishing Begins in Awe___________✨MORE FROM DR. JUSTIN SLEDGE↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/esotericachannel↳Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/esotericachannel↳https://www.justinsledge.com📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

E202 - Donald Robertson: 2,400-Year-Old Stoic Wisdom To Conquer Your Ego & Live a Virtuous Life

Donald Robertson is a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist, author of over nine books, and one of the founding voices in the modern Stoicism movement. He has spent over 30 years studying how ancient Greek and Roman philosophy intersects with contemporary psychology, and in this conversation we start where it all begins: the maxim carved into the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Know thyself. We explore what it actually meant, who said it, and why it still matters more than most self-help advice written in the last century.What We Dive Into:1. The Stoics drew a sharp line between what actually happens and the value judgments we add on top of it. To say something "is awful" treats our emotional reaction as a fact about the world.2. Of all the emotions that derail a life, anger gets the least attention in therapy, self-help, and honest self-reflection.3. In the ancient world, wisdom was not something you consumed or memorized. It was something you practiced daily. Collecting insights without changing your behavior is closer to what the Sophists sold than to what Socrates taught.Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyselfTry LMNT & get a free sample pack https://www.timeline.com/KNOWTHYSELF Save 20% off your Mitopure® Gummies___________00:00 Intro01:53 Know Thyself: The Three Sayings at Delphi07:44 What Philosophy Actually Means11:17 Socrates vs. the Sophists: Wisdom vs. Appearance18:05 The Stoic U-Turn: Reorienting What We Value23:59 Self-Knowledge as a Mirror for the Soul26:59 Values Clarification and the Eulogy Exercise35:02 Ad: LMNT36:03 Eudaimonia: Flourishing, Not Just Happiness39:40 Hardship as Opportunity for Character45:31 A Brief History of Stoicism53:22 Ad: Timeline Mitopure54:33 The Stoics Were Way Ahead of Their Time59:30 Stoicism, India, and Alexander the Great1:06:31 Early Christianity and Greek Philosophy1:14:03 Marcus Aurelius: The Man Behind the Meditations1:19:17 Philosophy Born from Injury: Marcus and Donald1:32:52 Uppercase vs. Lowercase Stoicism1:38:28 The Two Phases of Emotion1:45:47 Prosoché: The Practice of Paying Attention1:50:40 Appearance vs. Reality: The Stoic Core1:56:34 Turning the Chinese Proverb into a Practice2:02:44 The View from Above and the Acropolis2:11:28 Premeditatio Malorum: Rehearsing Adversity2:17:27 Anger as Temporary Madness2:23:26 De-Romanticizing Desire2:36:58 Sophists, Rhetoric, and Modern Influencers2:44:47 Why Self-Help Isn't More Helpful2:56:17 The Socratic Method as Cure for Conceit3:13:19 The King Who Rules Himself3:17:50 The Oracle of Delphi and Socrates' Mission3:33:44 Injustice Harms the Perpetrator More3:36:51 Donald's Own Life: Philosophy as a Path3:38:46 The Eleusinian Mysteries and Marcus's Initiation3:48:21 Learning to Die as Liberation3:55:29 Marcus's Naked Soul: Transparency as Practice3:58:07 What the Stoics Taught About Love4:02:05 Rapid Fire: The Great Philosophers4:16:00 Closing Message: You Underestimate Your Resilience___________✨MORE FROM DONALD ROBERTSON↳Substack: https://donaldrobertson.substack.com/↳Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1732050.Donald_J_Robertson↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donaldjrobertson/↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DonaldJRobertsonAuthor/featured↳https://donaldrobertson.name📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list