Episode 23 – Karmic and Dharmic Synchronicity: The Invisible Rules of the Game That Govern Your Life

Some people believe the soul records a cassette of everything that will happen in a life, puts it in the player, and then incarnates on autopilot. Pål-Esben doesn’t buy it. For years he fought his own illness as an enemy, and the day he began to see it as a friend that kept him on track, new solutions began to appear in front of him.

In this twenty-third episode, Amina and her teacher and guide, Pål-Esben Wanvig, talk about karmic and dharmic synchronicity: the organising principle behind how we experience life. They explore what destiny really is, where free will comes in, and why our choices decide whether life sends us headwinds or tailwinds. It is part of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a podcast about the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to yourself.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

In this episode

• A short recap of karma, the rules of the game, and why experience counts for more than opinion
• Why the idea that everything is predetermined, the soul’s cassette player, takes away our self-responsibility
• Karmic and dharmic winds, and the karmic pressure that builds up when we ignore our learning
• Jung, the yogic roots of synchronicity, and synchronicity as the organising principle behind our experience of life
• Free will and the stream of opportunities, and the corridor that shows what destiny really is
• Pål-Esben’s illness as part of his corridor, and what the soul does not set up in advance
• Choice, Viktor Frankl, the river of life, and the grain of sand and the Sahara
• Why this process isn’t for everyone, and the Tibetan friend who asks Pål-Esben why he carries on

This podcast is for you if you:

• Seek real depth in your spiritual practice
• Want to understand yourself on a more fundamental level
• Are curious about shamanism but tired of superficial “new age” spirituality
• Have taken many alternative courses but still feel that something is missing
• Feel an inner longing for freedom, love and wholeness

In a time when so many get lost in external methods and promises of quick fixes, this podcast invites you back to the only place where true answers can be found: your own heart.

Listen above, or read the full conversation below.

Transcript

A warm welcome to the podcast “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. This podcast is a collaboration with our favourite magazine, the health and lifestyle magazine Medium, and is devoted to exploring the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to oneself. We follow Amina, a student at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School, as she goes through a deep primordial shamanic process of development together with her guide and teacher Pål-Esben. It is a raw, unpolished journey of discovery towards true joy in life, deeper meaning, and a life that truly feels good to live.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

Pål-Esben: Hi, and a warm welcome to a new episode, Amina.

Amina: Thank you so much, likewise, Pål-Esben.

Pål-Esben: Thank you! And a warm welcome to you too, dear listener, because it’s for you that we make these episodes, even though we have a very nice time recording them, Amina.

Amina: Really, really good fun. But it’s lovely that people like it too.

Pål-Esben: Exactly. We really appreciate that. And if you like what we’re doing and find it inspiring, we really appreciate a thumbs up and five stars and whatever else there is out there. We always appreciate that.

From karma to synchronicity

Here’s where we pick up our conversation today. Last time we only just began to scratch the surface of the topic of karma, which is extraordinarily exciting once you start going into it a little and understand what it’s really about. Today we’re going to continue with that topic, but take it a bit further: what synchronicity is, what dharmic and karmic synchronicity are, and why they are the organising principles behind our experience of life.

Amina: Whoa. No less!

Pål-Esben: No less. So these are fairly important things we’re going to talk about today. And I hope you’re awake, dear listener, because now we’re going straight in and sinking our teeth into the topic.

A short recap: what karma is

So first, Amina, perhaps we should do a quick little recap of what we talked about last time. Very, very briefly.

There we introduced what karma is. It’s a word translated from Sanskrit, and if we start from karma’s Sanskrit root, which is kr, it means to do or to act. That’s why we translate karma as action, or deeds, but not only the action itself: above all, the consequence of the actions we take.

Many people hear karma described as something that is either reward or punishment. We killed off that myth last time, and we say it has nothing to do with that.

When it comes to understanding karma, and understanding why it’s so important, the point is that if we’re going to handle our material life, it’s important to understand the fundamental laws we’re bound by. Gravity, for example. We all take it for granted that gravity is something we understand, and something we’ve learned to deal with. Because if we didn’t understand gravity, we’d stand on the fifth floor of a building and just jump out, since there’d be no such thing as gravity or the pull of gravity. And that doesn’t end well.

So through our upbringing and our imprints we’ve learned to understand the basic mechanisms we need to be aware of and deal with for our material existence: gravity, for example, the pull of gravity, magnetism and those things. And if we don’t manage to deal with them well, we often have a big problem.

The rules of the game: chess and football

The same applies to these other universal mechanisms, the laws, such as karma. You can of course ignore this. You can ignore the fundamental rules of the game, or you can be smart and understand them, so that you can play with the rules of the game and not against them.

It’s as if you’re trying to play chess, and you just shove the pawn about: “I just want to move the pawn wherever I want to move it.” That works badly in chess. Or you’re playing football and say: “No, I’m not interested in the rules of football, offside and all that. No, they don’t apply to me. I don’t want anything to do with that, and I think my own goal is the goal I’m supposed to shoot the ball into.” That works badly.

That is to say, when we talk about these basic mechanisms, which we may not be so used to in our daily lives, karma for example, and dharmic and karmic synchronicity, which we’re going to talk about today, they affect us and steer our lives far more than we could ever dream.

So our idea, Amina, is this: why not understand these basic mechanisms, understand the rules, so that I can deal with them and play along with them, instead of things just being left to chance, and me getting blindsided, and then suffering and pain and limitation setting in?

That’s my motivation for sharing what we talked about last time and what we’re talking about now, and really our whole podcast: to inspire you as a listener to take a slightly different look at these basic mechanisms from what you commonly hear in the esoteric world, where you can hear a great many strange things about this. For example, that karma is about reward or punishment, and that kind of nonsense. It’s time to wake up from the bullshit and try to see what things are really about.

Karma in the yogic tradition

And when you study karma, you’ll of course find a great deal of interest in the yogic culture. Unfortunately, much of it has been mistranslated into the Western languages, such as English, because it’s academics who have done the translating, without any understanding of the Sanskrit roots and all those things. So there are often a great many misunderstandings and mistranslations.

So karma: if you look into the yogic tradition and really see what it is, it has to do with action and doing, and not least with the consequence of the action you take, and especially the consequence of the intention behind the action you take. Because it isn’t the action itself that’s the challenge; it’s what intention I have behind what I do.

We talked about that last time. And we also said that karma is the memory of all doing and action, including the lack of doing and action, that you carry out in the four dimensions: physical action, mental action, emotional action and energetic action, whether awake, asleep, conscious or unconscious.

That’s a mouthful. In plain language, it means it’s a consequence of everything we do and don’t do. And that consequence, and the memory of that consequence, is what comes out and is our karma.

Later we’ll talk a bit about karmic and dharmic winds and so on, but just to finish the recap of last time, the definition I prefer when it comes to karma is the following. It’s the sum of all the remaining traces and imprints, that is, the consequence, of all the doing, that is, action, you have carried out, consciously, unconsciously, awake or asleep, with your body, with your intellect, with your emotions, with your feelings and with your life energy. Karma is the memory of all this.

And if you sit down and take a couple of steps back, this goes much deeper than karma being reward or punishment. It means that you, Amina, are responsible for your karma, and I’m responsible for my karma. How did you feel the first time you understood that you, Amina, and only you and no one else, are responsible for the karma you create, and not least for healing and letting go of the karma you’ve already created? What did you think when it hit you square in the face?

Amina’s answer: the freedom in there being laws

Amina: Yes, that was an atom bomb of a seminar like no other, Pål-Esben. And I have to say that at first I got a bit scared. I thought: “Good grief, if I go left now, if I go right now, if I brush my teeth at nine o’clock or at ten o’clock, everything has a consequence.”

But it turned around quite quickly. I found a lot of freedom in it. I love karma. I love that there are some laws and rules in the cosmic world, in the physical world, that we have to relate to. Because I also come from a place, from social settings, where people are concerned with everyone having their own truth. Tom has his truth, Dick has his truth, Harriet has her truth, and those truths are very different.

And I can see it from a bigger perspective, that you should respect other people’s experiences, thoughts and perceptions. But for me it also felt very unsettling. I like there being an order in the cosmic sphere, the metaphysical sphere. I like there being an order in it, because it makes me feel that not everything is just left to chance, and it also gives me more power over my own life.

And even when something happens and I get a feeling of “Whoa, do I deserve to experience this?” or “That was unfair”, and that can happen, you can experience unfair things in the world. Even then I’ve found a place in myself where, on some level, there’s a karma, a sum that simply has to add up. It isn’t good or bad, but it simply has to add up.

So I love that there are laws and rules. My human self doesn’t always rejoice at it, because rotten things can happen. But I like the fact, and this is also what I like about learning from you, Pål-Esben, that not everything is left to chance, or to how you feel and things like that. And I think perhaps some people may be a bit offended by that: “Whoa, can’t I have my own truth?” Because there are so many different views of reality out there. But I really believe there’s a structure in all of this. It isn’t just a globe whirling around in nothingness, which suddenly came along and is simply there. Everything is connected; you can see that in nature and with the planets. So that’s what I really like about karma.

Pål-Esben: Yes. And it’s clear that everyone has a subjective reality. Each person has their subjective relationship with things, but that often has nothing to do with reality. So we have to distinguish between a subjective understanding of things and an objective reality. A spade is a spade, even if you want it to be an egg.

Amina: I remember one thing that really turned it around for me. It was when you talked about it right at the start of the basic training, at a seminar. I don’t quite remember the setting, but it went roughly like this. Say you go up a mountain and decide that no, I don’t really resonate with gravity. Well, if you’re a person who doesn’t resonate with gravity, OK, that’s your reality. But go up a mountain and jump off, and you’ll get hurt; then you’ll have to relate to that law and that rule. And it made me think: “Whoa, aha, yes, of course. We have gravity. There are more laws and rules here, whether I like it or not.”

My reality, and its consequences

Pål-Esben: Yes. And this very thing, karma, has been so very, very well described over 5,000 years of the yogic tradition. The topic of karma, or the mechanism of karma, is described in pretty much every culture, perhaps under slightly different names.

And when we then try to make our own rules of the game, because “this is my reality, and who are you to say I’m not allowed to have my reality?”, then I say: be my guest, have your own reality, but then you also have to take the consequences of it.

And I’m often very clear and direct in what I talk about, because it isn’t based on my opinion. It isn’t based on my channelling something right now, and it isn’t based on my having had so-called downloads, as they’re so popularly called today. The first time I heard “downloads”, someone was talking to me, and I thought: “What on earth are downloads?” Then I was very fascinated. So you can see how little I’m into the esoteric world. I mean: downloads, from where? “Well, from the cloud.” I say: “Where is the cloud?” So now you’ll have to excuse me; it probably has to do with my starting to get a bit older and eccentric, as my wife says.

But what we’re talking about now is extremely important, and a gigantic problem in the esoteric world. Because it’s often like this: “Well, that’s my opinion, that’s how I see it, and who are you to say I’m not allowed to see it that way?” Yes, you can see it that way, but you’ll then come up against the consequences of it.

Experience, not opinion

What I talk about, or share, also when we talk together, has nothing to do with our having invented something, or channelled something, or read something in a book. It comes through experience. And what proves whether a mechanism, a concept, a theory is relevant and connected to reality is when people begin to use that theory, that concept, that understanding, and put it into practice in their daily lives, and changes happen: people become happier, they become healthier, they find more meaning.

And when that happens again and again, with thousands of students and clients, as it has with me over the last 20-plus years, it has nothing to do with opinion. Then it has nothing to do with channelling; then it’s hard facts, because the results repeat themselves again and again and again, as they did with you. Suppose this were just a notion: no, there’s no such thing as karma, because we all have our own reality, everything is predetermined, and so on and so on. Well, then these concepts we’ve talked about in our podcast, the theory, the philosophy, call it what we like, the methods and techniques, would not have changed a human being’s life. Yet your life and the lives of all your fellow students have been turned completely upside down, when it comes to getting well, becoming happier and more joyful, and creating more meaning in life.

So there’s a difference between having an opinion and a view about things, and being able to prove again and again and again with people that the concept gives objectively measurable results in their lives. And that’s what we’re talking about in this podcast. Not that we have opinions about things, not that we’ve read things, but the stark consequences of starting to use this philosophy: life is transformed and turned completely upside down in the space of a few months. That’s what we’re talking about here.

And if you, dear Amina, come to me and say, “Pål-Esben, I don’t agree with what you’re saying”, then I say: that’s perfectly fine, because you haven’t come here to agree with me. You’ve come here to let me inspire you to go and experience it for yourself. Because it’s when you begin to experience these things, and life begins to change in a practical, objectively measurable way, that you can see whether things work or don’t work.

Amina: Yes. Yes.

Pål-Esben: And that’s our whole thing here: it’s an experience-based process of development. The profound primordial shamanic path of development, or the process we’re talking about, is experience-based. You’re not supposed to believe things, or have a guru or figure standing up on a pedestal, where you just say: “Oh lord, we must do as you say, great guru.” That meaningless business.

Here you’re brought up to be critical, but not so critical that you say: “No, I don’t want to try that out.” Rather, you’re critical of what you hear, and then you go and experience it, and there you get to see the proof. And when you see the proof in your own body, you can suddenly say: “OK, this is something that’s connected to reality.”

Because now and then I have to apologise a little, dear listener. Now and then I can come across as very bombastic and categorical in what I say. That’s mainly to save time, since I’ve beaten about the bush for so many years that I’ve become too old to do it any longer. And it’s because I have so much experience with so many students and clients that I can say: this is how it is, and this is how it isn’t. And some people get a bit sour and huffy about these things.

But yes, you’ll have to excuse me now, dear listener, if you think I’m a bit odd. It’s just the way I am. I’ve begun to get used to myself. You take me with a pinch of salt and say: “Yes, yes, that’s typical of him, I understand.” Or perhaps: “I don’t agree with what you’re saying, but at least I’m willing to try things out.”

Amina: Yes. Well, personally I really appreciate the way you put things across. But it’s as you say: it can be categorical for some people, or too clear and direct for some, and I can understand that too. But I certainly appreciate it a great deal.

And as you say: the times I’ve felt, “Well, I’m not quite sure I agree”, I’ve at least agreed with myself that, you know what, I’m going to open myself up and give it a try. I’m going to open up my limited little box here. And that has actually saved my life, too. So that’s a reference experience in itself.

Karmic pressure and the soul’s straitjacket

Pål-Esben: Yes. And when we talk about karma, in my eyes, and based on my experience, it’s one of the more important universal mechanisms to understand the rules of. Because the consequence of this matters a great deal in a human being’s life. Are you ignorant of these things, and just a victim of whatever winds are blowing? Or do you hoist the sails on your sailing boat and set your course, through karmic storms too, which we all experience in life?

Because in this incarnation, and, if we speak linearly, in earlier incarnations, something builds up that’s called a karmic memory, which can be experienced as a karmic pressure. And that pressure is there to inspire us to learn and grow. That’s the whole point of the soul coming here: from its free state in oneness, it puts itself into this straitjacket and becomes limited by time and space.

It hasn’t come here to have a holiday. It has come here to expose itself to one of the greatest challenges in this universe that a soul can incarnate into: being completely disconnected from its true nature. That’s quite something. And it isn’t just that we come down here and get imprinted and gradually become completely disconnected. What’s really difficult is eventually finding our way back to our true nature without having any contact with our true nature.

So this is a gigantic thing. And the more you understand the rules of the game, the more you can become the game-maker in your own game. Because your own game is part of these rules, and we can’t do without them here, where we’ve incarnated.

So when we talk about karma, it’s also a memory that builds up: a memory not only of our actions, but of the consequences of our actions. And why is this so important? Well, because the soul couldn’t have incarnated here without karma, or the karmic mechanism. We talked about it last time. If there were no consequence to anything at all, what chance would you have to learn and grow around anything at all? You’d have no reason to learn and grow. So it would have been meaningless for your soul, that is, you, to incarnate in the straitjacket.

“Everything is predetermined”: the cassette player

The soul isn’t sadomasochistic, after all. Now and then I hear meaningless stuff like: “Yes, but human beings have no free will, because everything is predetermined.” And most recently I heard that the soul has lots of different cassettes that are already recorded, with exactly what happens and all that throughout life. So when you’re a soul, you take out one of these cassettes, put it in the cassette player, and then you incarnate, and then you just play through this cassette on autopilot without having any choice.

Do you really think your soul is that stupid? Look at what we are, what you are, what I am, what you are, dear listener, that is, your soul. Here we have a gigantic thing the size of this universe, if you use a metaphor for it, which is a trillion times more intelligent than you and I as primates. That is, than the intelligence we have.

And do you think a mega-intelligent being like that sits down in a teenager’s bedroom, records some cassette or other of exactly what’s going to happen, puts it in the cassette player, incarnates, and then, what, as entertainment? I mean, it’s so insane that my head spins when I hear about these things.

And that’s what’s often found in the esoteric world: a way of taking away a human being’s self-responsibility for their life. Because then you’re saying: everything is predetermined. So whatever I do or don’t do, only what has to happen will happen. And that means we don’t need to take any self-responsibility. We don’t need to do anything for our process of growth. We don’t need to do absolutely anything to learn new things, to get out of problems and grow out of them, and all that.

That is to say, we’re just the victim of another sadomasochistic soul, namely ourselves, who has recorded some instrument of torture or other on cassette. Now this incarnation is over; we’ve gone through all of this. What happens, do you wake up? No, then we play the next cassette. Let’s play these cassettes until we drop.

So I think: “Do you really believe that about my soul?”

And so on. As I get older and hear this again and again, I can’t be bothered to argue with people any more. I’ve come too far. It’s so meaningless. And of course it’s also important to me to be able to inspire you.

So there, dear listener, if you’re open to inspiration: no one but ourselves is responsible for what we do, our actions, and the consequences of our actions. We’re definitely not responsible for everything that happens to us, because we have no control over that, or very little, at any rate. If you’re sitting at a red light and someone drives into you while you’re sitting there, you can’t say: “Oh, it’s my fault, because I was radiating something or other that made that guy come and drive into me.” I mean, that’s not how it works. But we are responsible for how we think, feel and act in response to what happens to us.

That’s where self-responsibility comes in. And unfortunately, in the esoteric world there’s a great deal of shirking responsibility for everything. That is to say: whether it’s evil forces out there, or demons and everyone else coming to take control of me, it’s others who are the cause of my problems. No, no one else is the cause of that. You are fully responsible for how you interact with what happens to you. And you can do that with suffering, or you can do it with growth and meaning.

And of course there are many who don’t like hearing these things. But otherwise it would be meaningless for your gigantic soul, for what you really are, to come here at all and put itself in this straitjacket. I get a bit enthusiastic when I talk about these things, because I find it so sad when people are fed this nonsense.

Again and again I hear these things: “No, everything is pre-programmed. You’re living in a simulation, where an alien or some supercomputer or other is sitting there controlling you.” But that’s just about shirking responsibility. There’s no supercomputer or alien sitting there controlling you. It’s your own soul that creates the setting you’re in, that creates the simulation. It’s your own soul that creates the simulation you believe is reality.

In reality, you’re right in the middle of your soul at this very moment. Your soul has a focal point right in the middle of itself, where one part of it has the goal of experiencing in a limited state. So this part of your soul is in the dream world; it’s dreaming, and that’s what you experience as us sitting here talking now. It’s your soul that is dreaming, that is asleep, at least this part of your soul.

That of course opens up other possibilities for understanding why we do these things. Definitely not because we have no free will, because without free will we can’t learn, and so on. And that’s the whole point of what’s going on here. That’s where karma comes in, as an important mechanism to understand.

When the pressure builds up

Because it’s like that throughout your life too, Amina: you notice it when the karmic pressure, as I call it, is there. That is to say, we build up karma by doing things that perhaps don’t come very much from the heart, so that we create what’s called a karmic pressure.

For example, we ignore learning. So it happens in the first relationship: you experience unpleasant things and learn nothing. The pressure builds up, the karmic pressure, and you go into the next relationship, and it’s the same shit. And we still don’t learn. The karmic pressure keeps increasing, because the karmic pressure is really meant to get you to say that now it’s time to learn, at some point in this life or in future incarnations. Now it’s time to wake up, as you told us last time, through violent relationships. And then you came to the point where you say: “Enough is enough.” By then the karmic pressure was extreme.

Amina: Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. And then the question is: what is destiny, then? What’s the difference between karma and destiny in all this? Because people say something is predestined, and then we also have free will. So how do they fit together?

Karmic and dharmic winds

Pål-Esben: Yes, that’s a very good question, because that brings us directly to dharmic and karmic synchronicity, and what it is. But just to complete the circle around karma: we often simplify by calling it karma and dharma. But karma is karma, and really describes both karma and dharma.

So we say that karma is these pressures, these winds that are created when we ignore our learning, so that we get more and more pressured over time, there’s more and more suffering, and eventually we get the opportunity to say that enough is enough, as I did with my burnout. To say that enough is enough, and wake up from it, and begin to learn.

And then we have what’s called the opposite, which is the dharmic winds and the dharmic pressure. That is to say, when you’re actively in a learning process, trying to understand your learning tasks, trying to resolve them, trying to grow out of them, something called dharmic winds is created, which you can call tailwinds. And karmic winds can be seen as headwinds. But both are there to help us learn. And without them, meaning couldn’t exist at all, because then there would be no reason to do anything at all.

So karma is like a seed. We need to tend it, by understanding the rules for cultivating this seed. And so karma can be both created and deleted. That’s what we talked about a great deal last time. We talked about these things in detail, so we won’t repeat them now. But the reason we do such a… Sorry?

Amina: No, I just remembered what we talked about last time, about the revelation I had: “Whoa, I don’t need to learn in that way any more.” And then it was sort of just over, that same day. It’s a bit like what we talked about last time, and of course it isn’t just a matter of pressing a button and it’s gone. But it’s pretty spectacular and fantastic and magical, the whole package, to see how it just goes poof. And yes, I’ve experienced the same thing later on too, and just thought: “No, I can’t be bothered to learn like that any more.” And of course I’d been pushed and pushed and pushed towards that insight, with guidance, experience and so on.

Pål-Esben: Very interesting. And who knows how long you’ve really spent getting to the point where you were willing to resolve this learning theme. And that’s just counting this life. It may have to do with karma from earlier incarnations, and now we’re speaking linearly again, which is also part of this pressure, these winds, these cycles, both dharmic and karmic cycles.

And then eventually we reach the point you reached, and say: “Enough is enough. I don’t want this any more.” And then you begin to look for help and learning. You can do that now, or you can do it in a thousand incarnations. We all need our own time for this. But in my experience, the karma will eventually become so intense that in the end we have little choice about engaging with what we need to learn.

What is synchronicity?

So, to go a little further. A topic that’s often discussed out there too, as I’ve understood it, is the topic of synchronicity.

Amina: Yes, yes.

Pål-Esben: And that’s also a super exciting mechanism, a universal mechanism, a universal law, call it what you like, which really helps steer our whole experience of life. To be able to understand synchronicity, and what dharmic and karmic synchronicity are, you need the understanding we talked about last time and so far today. Because then we can go further with this.

How did you see this at the start, Amina? What’s the common view out there of what this is?

Amina: Well, the way I’ve understood it, from my experience and the people I’ve talked to, synchronicities are about seeing lots of butterflies, or seeing lots of repeating numbers: angel numbers. Like: “Whoa, I was thinking about Mum, and then Mum rang, and then I saw a butterfly, and Mum loved butterflies when she was alive”, for example. No, hang on, I just said that Mum rang. But anyway, those kinds of synchronicities.

But the one that keeps coming up in particular is angel numbers. And these… I mean, when a person begins to open up to the spiritual, to what are called spiritual awakenings, they begin to see angel numbers, numbers. And also people who find that things fall into place for them more, in a way. So I’m a bit curious too: is there anything in it?

Pål-Esben: I’m curious myself. Never heard of angel numbers. You’ll have to explain to me what angel numbers are.

Amina: Well, it’s like 1-1-1, 2-2-2, 3-3-3, those kinds of synchronicities.

Pål-Esben: OK, so we’re talking about the numerological side here.

Amina: Yes, yes.

Jung and the yogic root

Pål-Esben: So of course, all of that is also an aspect of synchronicity, which we’ll come to later. But let’s start from the ground up. The simplest explanation of synchronicity actually goes back to the yogic tradition. But you find it in all the great spiritual traditions around the world. The person best known for bringing the concept of synchronicity into the Western world is Carl Gustav Jung. He was one of Freud’s top students, as you know. But he was also very alternative in his outlook, so he often went over to India and studied with his gurus there. So a great deal of what Jung brought in here actually comes from the yogic tradition.

Amina: That’s really interesting.

Pål-Esben: So synchronicity is a term that I believe was first used in our Western world by Carl Gustav Jung, and it describes meaningful coincidences between events that have no causal cause-and-effect link. “Acausal” is Jung’s term: that is, without any cause-and-effect connection, but still experienced as having deep meaning.

That is to say, synchronicity arises when we have an inner experience, a thought, dream, feeling or intuition, that coincides with an outer event which in some way or other gives meaning to the person, the individual, as Carl Gustav Jung liked to say. And there’s no logical explanation for these two things happening at the same time. So there are two things happening that actually have no cause-and-effect connection, and yet there’s a deep link between them. It’s a curious thing: it happens, and it’s meaningful, but there’s no actual direct connection.

An example: you’re thinking about a good friend, or a family member, and then suddenly that person rings. That’s an example of the kind of synchronicity Jung talked about. He often saw this in his practice, when he worked with people, and very often found that people talked about these things. On top of that, of course, he had learned it from his gurus.

So Jung believed that such so-called coincidences, these things that fall together, aren’t random, but are an expression of the underlying order in the universe. And that isn’t something he invented; it’s something he learned from his gurus in India. Because of course they had understood this many thousands of years before anyone had even thought of Freud.

The definition: the organising principle

So I have a pretty stark definition of what synchronicity really is. And now you have to listen, because it’s a mouthful with mega consequences for a human being at any point in their life. So I’m going to define it.

Synchronicity is the fundamental, organising principle behind our experience of life, which coordinates what you attract, so that you get the opportunity to experience what you need, with perfect timing in relation to your life themes and choices.

And if you let this sink in a little, it’s Thor’s hammer striking the ground, with a mega impact on our whole life. That is to say: synchronicity is the fundamental, organising principle, the fundamental, organising law, the universal law, you can call it different things, behind our entire experience of life. That is, how we experience our life, every second of our life.

And synchronicity coordinates, that is, this universal law of synchronicity coordinates, what you attract. That means everything you attract, so that you get the opportunity to experience everything you need, with 100 percent perfect timing in relation to your life themes and choices.

So if you think karma is important, this may be a thousand times more important to understand than karma. This is something that, at every moment of your life, sets up the opportunities you have to learn.

Where does free will come in?

What’s easy to misunderstand in what I’m saying now is that people think: “Yes, Pål-Esben, if we take what you say literally, where’s free will, then? Synchronicity attracts, or rather coordinates, everything you attract, so that you have the opportunity to learn what you need to learn in relation to your life themes and choices, with perfect timing at every moment of your life.”

OK. There’s a stream of opportunities that you flow through. Where free will comes in is in how you choose to deal with this stream of opportunities that you’re exposed to throughout your whole life. That’s where your free will comes in.

That is to say, you can have an opportunity, for example, as we all do, to become financially independent. Everyone in this Western world has the opportunity to become financially independent, and each of us continuously gets a flood of opportunities for it to happen. What happens with most people? They’re completely oblivious. Completely oblivious to most of it. And yet a stream of opportunities keeps coming for me to be able to solve my financial problems.

This isn’t the same as the idea that if I just ask the universe, the Porsche will arrive tomorrow. That’s another of those notions that’s meaningless, of course. The Secret, I mean. We must hope we’ve got past that, and that people have gradually understood that this isn’t how it works. But a stream of opportunities keeps coming all the time, and we aren’t awake enough, and we aren’t open enough, to take them.

An example of these things: today, most illnesses can be resolved, and people can get well from them. Not all of them, and genetically determined illnesses especially are the exception, but by and large most of the illnesses that exist in the world today. The challenge isn’t a lack of input, that is, synchronicities, happening to every human being, with opportunities to read a book, or to get some input from a podcast, or whatever it may be, to take the next step on the road to getting well. No, it’s because we humans ignore it. “No, I can’t be bothered with that. No, I don’t believe in that.”

So this stream of what I call dharmic synchronicity, which we’re met with at all times, is something we use our free will to ignore. So all opportunities, absolutely all opportunities, are present at every moment for a human being to take the next step in their process of development. At all times we have available absolutely everything we need to take the next step towards setting ourselves completely free.

Amina: At all times?

Pål-Esben: At all times. The next step in our process of liberation. Then some people misunderstand me: “Oh, the next special technique, so that everything’s fine overnight?” No. The next step on the stairs, to take the next step on the stairs.

So this synchronicity is the fundamental, organising principle behind our entire experience of life. It coordinates everything we’re met with in the way of challenges, opportunities, solutions and potential things to learn, matched with perfect timing to our life themes and choices, which the soul has brought with it into this incarnation.

It takes a bit of commitment to get a grip on what I’m talking about now, because it’s a gigantic mouthful, and it matters a great deal. When we do understand it, it means that I, with my free will, have a great deal of say over what kind of synchronicity flows towards me.

Is it karmic synchronicity, which means I’m met with challenges and challenges and challenges so that I’ll grow and learn what my soul wants to learn? Or am I in an active process of growth myself, so that there’s no need for all these challenges all the time? Then I have the dharmic synchronicity and the opportunities presented to me, so that I can grow in a way that doesn’t come from suffering and problems and those things.

And every human being decides this through the choices we make at every moment, which in turn steer your karma, and whether it’s karmic or dharmic winds that are created. Synchronicity is just yet another organising principle that lies outside karma itself, but which depends on your karma.

The corridor: what destiny really is

And if you look at this from an eagle’s perspective: our soul comes into this life. Again we’re speaking linearly. Of course it isn’t linear, since everything happens at the same time, so there’s no such thing as reincarnation and things like that. Everything happens at the same time, but to simplify the language we speak linearly, as if we go from incarnation to incarnation and so on. We’ll drill into more of this in later episodes.

When your soul comes into this incarnation, it brings with it its learning themes, the things it wants to grow and gain experience around. And we can see this as a corridor. That corridor has many different doors, and they represent your learning themes. So you walk down this corridor and decide with your free will which doors you’ll open. Some are closed and can only be opened later in life, while others are wide open, and you can go in there. There you come across your learning themes, there you come across your karma, there you come across the dharmic and karmic pressure. And so the soul walks down this corridor, into different rooms and back to the corridor, throughout life.

And since you asked what destiny is: this is what destiny really is.

Amina: The corridor?

Pål-Esben: Life is like walking down this corridor that the soul has set up before you come into this incarnation. That is to say, you, your soul, what you really are, has set your learning themes: “This is what I want to engage with now, this is what I want to learn, these particular challenges are what I need to be able to learn at all.” That’s what I call our learning themes, our life themes. So the corridor represents our life themes, our learning themes. And that’s what our destiny is.

Destiny isn’t something or other that’s predetermined and runs on autopilot, with us having no choice. Our destiny, our soul’s destiny, comes from this corridor that the soul has plotted in advance. But it’s up to us and our free will how we go in and experience these different things, and how we react to and handle what we experience, because that’s where the actual learning lies. Pretty much everything is in the corridor that’s been set up by the soul before we incarnate.

That is to say, you can’t just wander anywhere you like. You have a specific corridor that your soul has set, which describes your learning themes, for better and for worse, if you can use a simple language of polarity here. But that’s what the soul has set, including the moment of your death. Give or take three or four months, that’s been set by your soul in advance. So will you then experience everything you’ve plotted in? No. How you meet your main themes is up to you, but the main themes themselves are something you’ll be moved into through the karmic pressure and the karmic wind.

My own corridor: the illness that kept me on track

For example, with me: a central part of my corridor has been my health problems. They were triggered and set off by my burnout. And in this incarnation I have a set of health problems that have motivated me and inspired me to learn and grow and understand, but which I’ve gradually come to understand I can’t let go of. Because they’re part of this corridor. It isn’t the case that all illness can be healed; seen from the soul’s point of view, that isn’t the intention either.

At the start I thought it was all about getting completely well. I couldn’t become happy without having got completely well. And I fought against my illness, fought against depression, fought against chronic fatigue, fought against all these diagnoses. I think I’ve had more than 100 diagnoses over the years, if I’m not starting to approach 200 diagnoses from all the doctors I’ve come across. I have pretty much most of the diagnoses I think they can give, apart from cancer. Because they didn’t understand what the problem was, since I had all the symptoms of these different things.

And I fought, fought, fought against my illness. But after all, it was what motivated me to get going and say: “Pål-Esben, you have to do this properly. You can’t just skim along the surface and mess about here. You can’t cut corners on the surface; you have to go deep here and really do what it takes.”

But I gradually understood that this spectrum of illness of mine is part of my corridor, which my soul, that is, I, set myself to keep me on track. Because I gradually saw that if, say, ten years ago, I had got completely well and got back… I mean, today I express perhaps ten percent of the energy I really have. If, ten years ago, I’d got back 100 percent of my energy, do you really think I’d be sitting here today? I think the monkey, the primate, would have gone completely wild. I might not have had any reason to learn, no reason to engage in a deeper understanding of our reality. Then it’s just the monkey having a great time, and starting ten different companies.

So gradually I understood this corridor of mine: that there are opportunities and limitations with it, but the corridor is set by the soul, and my task is how I interact with the opportunities, the challenges and so on that are set in this corridor. And that was my real destiny. Not that it runs on autopilot, but that it’s something the soul has set in broad outline, not every detail, of course. But my genetic problems, for example, and all these things are something that was set in advance. That’s what led me to find perfect parents who had this genetic make-up, so that my genetic problems and illnesses could arise from these things. I mean, perfect. Totally brilliant.

But my task, and your task, is to walk down this corridor, and to become aware of how we deal with what happens. That’s where our learning lies: how we use free will. And there’s a difference between things running on autopilot and the corridor being set. That is to say, take the most violent things you’ve experienced. Not everything is set, but the main theme around it is set. By yourself.

And it may sound a bit horrible. How can I expose myself to these things? How can I expose myself to being imprinted so deeply with this religion and this fear? How can I expose myself to situations where I experienced these things? But when you look a little later in your life, I’d say that without it you’d never be sitting here with the insight you have today, and be who you are today.

Amina: Yes, absolutely. And that’s what I try to keep in the back of my mind with my children too, who are going through their own things. I’m the best mum I can be at this point in time and at that point in time, but I see that there are some things they have to go through, which I can’t save them from, and perhaps shouldn’t save them from either. Because if you look at my own story, there are some deeper learning themes here, which they’ll definitely learn and grow from later, with their free will and their insights and so on.

And what you’re saying now about illness and limitations is also something I was very inspired by when you first shared it. Because I’ve also had challenges with chronic illness, fatigue, pain and things like that, where I see that I can live very well as long as I don’t go beyond my limitations. And as soon as I go beyond my limitations, it flares up.

And a bit like you’ve also touched on: you very quickly think that illness and limitations must be karmic, but they can also be dharmic. And that can be a bit hard to understand. Would you say something about that? Or perhaps you’ve said a bit about it just now, but yes.

From enemy to friend: when the synchronicity turned

Pål-Esben: Yes, and of course this is difficult when you’re struggling. It was difficult for me, it was difficult for you. Because you didn’t want to be ill. In our society we’re taught to say that illness is bad stuff we shouldn’t have. And of course nobody says “I want more illness”; that’s not what I mean here.

But there’s a way of seeing this. We’re talking about perspectives to observe life from, and to live life from. We can live life from the view that our situation is so horrible: I don’t have enough money, and I’m troubled by feeling low, and I’m troubled by this and troubled by that. We can see it as horrible, we can see it as something we don’t want, and we can fight against it. We can fight against it and say it’s terrible, it’s terrible, it’s terrible, which will then make everything more terrible.

Or we can say: OK, if we choose to see it from the perspective we’re trying to shed light on today, you could say that this is part of my soul’s corridor that I’m walking down, where I’m met with both resources and challenges. How should I relate to these things? How can I try to find a solution? How can I try to grow with them? How can I try to play on the same team as these things, instead of them being my enemy?

And then came the day I went from seeing my illness as an enemy to seeing it as a friend. It helps me stay on track, it helps inspire me to find solutions to my own issues, it helps inspire me to share those solutions with others. Then my illness suddenly wasn’t an enemy any more, but a friend that helps me stay on track. And what happened when I made that choice was that new dharmic synchronicities arose in front of me: central solutions to fundamental parts of my complex health problems rose up before me like a phoenix.

I had an interesting image of it. I was fighting against my corridor, thinking I don’t want it like this, it shouldn’t be like this. And what happened then was a series of what I can call karmic synchronicity: everything was horrible, life is hard to live, why me, why me, I want something else, my soul longs for something else, why am I limiting myself, I can only do a little of what’s possible, why is it like this, why do I deserve this, and all these things.

If we go back to my definition: synchronicity is the fundamental, organising principle behind our experience of life, which coordinates everything you attract, so that you get the opportunity to experience everything you need, with perfect timing in relation to your life themes and choices.

And what happened when I began to turn these things around, and say that my illness isn’t my enemy any more, but one of my teachers? Kaboom! Then what we can call dharmic synchronicity began: things arising in front of me, opportunities. Suddenly I’d get ideas and notions that perhaps I should try that. Suddenly I’d hear on the airwaves about the latest research on an immune system that goes haywire, and think: perhaps you should try that.

So the ideas come, the inspiration, instead of my being caught up in no, no, no, no, which blocks pretty much any inspirational energy. Instead I say: “OK, let me look at this. I can’t do anything about it right now; let me accept it as it is, let me make peace with it, let me use it as a guide and teacher in my process of development.” And then everything turned around. So I’ve learned the hard way here too.

An important distinction: what is NOT set up

And of course we can take this to the most dramatic extreme. But what I hope is that you, dear listener, don’t misunderstand what we’re talking about now. Because this is easy to misunderstand as well, and you might say: “Aha, does that mean that when I survived sexual abuse in my childhood, it was set up in advance? Had my soul decided it should happen?” No, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the learning themes, the lessons, the themes the soul wants to learn, being set up in advance, but not exactly what happens.

Some things are set up exactly the way they happen. An example from my own life: my illness and the whole game around it, my burnout, meeting my wife, meeting my first teacher, and so on. That’s set up in advance, so that I get the opportunity. But not everything I’ve experienced in this life was set up. Being subjected to sexual abuse between the ages of six and ten, and so on, was of course nothing that was set up. It’s just a learning theme connected to the setting, which can be learned in so many different ways. But now and then things happen by chance, because it’s other people’s karmic winds we come across, and then things really go badly wrong.

So please don’t become overly focused on the idea that absolutely everything that has happened in my life was set up by my soul. No, that’s not how it is. The main current, the corridor, is set up, but not every single event.

What’s interesting, then, is this: what do you do with what you’ve experienced? I could have experienced what I went through between the ages of six and ten in a different way, and what I’ve learned from the aftermath could have been the same. But in my case what happened happened, and I’ve had to learn from it. Once it has happened, we can’t do anything about what has happened. But the actual learning and growth through the corridor comes from understanding it, and understanding that it wasn’t my fault that it happened.

That’s one of the biggest things with a serious trauma: that it isn’t my fault that it happened. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it happened. It was unacceptable that it happened, utterly horrible that a child is subjected to such things. But my task as an adult is to look back there and say: “I can’t do anything about what has happened, but I can see what I can do to release it. What can I do to delete the emotional, mental, energetic connection with the past, so that it no longer steers my present?” That’s part of the corridor.

Amina: It really is a mouthful. Because on the one hand you hear that OK, things are set up in advance so that you’ll learn, but this or that particular thing isn’t necessarily set up in this or that particular way. I remember I had to think it through many times myself, and still do, and I understand more and more with each week that passes. It isn’t necessarily this or that event that has to look like that, but your learning theme is this, and how it plays out, well, we’ll see what happens. But it’s a mouthful for the intellect to understand, it really is.

The topic of choice: the most complex of all

Pål-Esben: As with you, it takes sitting down and really thinking this through, and making sure the intellect doesn’t jump to conclusions. That’s often the challenge. And for that, conversations with a guide, a teacher or a mentor who really understands these things help. That’s how I did it with you, helping you through this understanding and to be able to identify these things in your life yourself. And gradually you gained more and more understanding that, aha, this is a mechanism, an organising principle on a par with gravity.

And when I understand this principle, and when I let it sink in and cultivate my insight into it, suddenly I have more and more understanding of the rules of the game available to me. And then I can be more and more the game-maker in my own life, when it comes to dealing with the rules of the game, through understanding them.

And that brings us back to the worst of all: the topic of choice. It must be the most complex topic I ever discuss with anyone, the topic of choice. That we humans have the free will to choose, at all times, in every setting, what we think, feel and do about something that happens to us, externally and internally. It sounds so simple. But it’s so complex for most people.

We talked earlier about Viktor Frankl, who was one of my first heroes. Because in the old days I was one of those who whined and complained about others. The reason I was having such a hard time was my mother; that was why I ended up in burnout and everything came crashing down. That kind of armchair psychology was what I’d been brought up on. No, my mother wasn’t the reason I ended up in burnout. It was my choices that did it.

Then I came across Dr Viktor Frankl, who had been in a concentration camp. He was a psychiatrist, and he said that they could take everything from him. They could torture him, they could kill his friends, his family, but they could never take from him the power over what he thought, felt and did in response to what happened to him. That is to say, they could never take from him his free will to relate to what he thought, felt and did in response to what happens.

Hating my mother, and the turning point

At that time I was perhaps a two on the Viktor Frankl scale, when it came to certain themes in my life. My muscles were very… My boss was the cause of my burnout, my mother was the cause of my burnout. And then I had a counsellor who fanned the flames of this meaningless armchair psychology and said: “Yes, your mother did this and that, that was the reason you became like this and that, that was the reason you went into burnout and got ill.” It made me begin to hate my mother. A damned idiot of a guy, who through these things led me into two or three years when I hated my mother and didn’t want to talk to her, because she was the one to blame for all my suffering.

And eventually I woke up and said: “Hello? My mother was trying all the time, from her knowledge and experience, to do the best she could.” Was everything she did good? Of course not. But you also have to see, as I learned to understand her, that she grew up during the Second World War, when the Germans came and took the farm from her and my grandmother, and they lived for several years without food, and all those things. No wonder she tried to push her son to get a good education and earn enough money, and that happiness wasn’t so important, but being functional was. And then these things turned around.

And when we talk about karma and synchronicity, and dharmic and karmic synchronicity, which really organise how we experience our life, my encouragement is not to jump to conclusions by thinking you understand it, but to think it through, perhaps talk about it and discuss it a little. And then we keep coming back to the fact that your choices are what steer which stream of opportunities reveals itself every second, every hour, every day you experience. And of course that’s what many people don’t want to hear: that they themselves have a massive choice over what it’s like to go through their life’s corridor, their life’s destiny.

Amina: Yes, and not least the choices you don’t make. It’s exactly the same. What you avoid is also a choice.

Pål-Esben: Yes, yes. You can, for example, live in a relationship that’s very destructive, and avoid bringing up the issues, and just suffer with the destructive part. And then more and more of what we can call karmic synchronicity is created. And the karmic pressure gets bigger and bigger. But with your free will and a choice you can put your foot down and say: “This far and no further.” Either you break free of the relationship, or you make sure you both get help, by going to couples therapy, for example, or whatever you do.

What happens then is that a different kind of stream of opportunities comes to meet you. And that comes from dharmic synchronicity, which has a completely different kind of wind. It’s more like a warm wind coming down off the mountains. What comes from karmic synchronicity you can experience as an ice-cold north wind, with a bit of hail in it now and then.

Choice requires the foundations

And that’s where this topic of choice comes back in. For us humans, it’s what steers what kind of synchronicity, what kind of opportunities, we attract, with perfect timing in relation to our life themes, our corridor, and the choices we make at any given time.

So I’ve drummed into you how important this is, with The 7 Golden Keys: with consciousness, self-responsibility, free will. And how important the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart are, with gratitude and forgiveness and self-regulation. All of that is the fundamental stuff we need to learn to understand in order to become able to start making good choices in our life at all. Otherwise pretty much everything runs on autopilot for a human being.

Take people who don’t practise these things, and who don’t practise personal development, awareness, self-responsibility, how to use free will, and self-regulation. Pretty much all their choices run more or less on autopilot. Then a great many of these karmic winds and a great deal of karmic synchronicity happen in their lives. That’s why many of the people I meet, who come to me when they’re over 40, perhaps approaching 50, say to me: “I have so much good in my life, but I feel this extreme emptiness.”

Amina: Yes.

Pål-Esben: That’s another example of this. But then we make that choice and say: “I feel this emptiness in me, I feel this lack of meaning, I feel there must be something more in life that I haven’t understood yet, I have a longing in me”, as so many do. The day you make a choice to start exploring it, this begins to turn around. And only then can you start what we call the soul’s epic journey: the journey home to your complete existence.

Like you’re doing now, at 30. I mean, your epic journey started long before a normal human being’s epic journey. I won’t talk about all of it, because it’s a bit sensitive.

Amina: What’s the reason for that, then?

Pål-Esben: The reason is that it has to do with the process, and it has to do with your soul’s corridor. It has to do with the experiences your soul brings in with it from what we call earlier incarnations, and where you have things you want to engage with. You’ve already gone through a lot of the learning themes that most people are busy with in their daily lives. And you’ve reached a point where something completely different is waiting for you in this incarnation than dealing with the standard stuff, with its usual business. You’ve come here for something completely different. And so it was important that this happened much earlier in life, because of what lies ahead of you on the timeline.

So it has to do with your soul, what your soul needs, and what it now needs to learn about, which meant you started the epic journey in your early thirties. Normally it starts when people are between 50 and 60. You and I started very early with this, but that’s because our souls’ missions are very similar, and then you can’t do these things late.

If I were only starting now, for example, rather than 20 years ago, I’d be too late to do what my soul wants to deal with in this incarnation, and which is only beginning now. My real life process, which the soul is here to experience, is starting for me now, in the time we’re living in right now. Now I’m, what shall I say, ripe for it.

Amina: Yes.

Pål-Esben: Now my job isn’t dealing with kindergarten stuff, but helping people find the way home to full liberation. That’s what lies ahead of me now, full on, over the next few years, and what you’re right in the middle of. You have your things, and everyone has their things. Nothing is more important than anything else; it’s just that our souls are a little different when it comes to what we need right now.

Now I have to accept it and say that OK, not everyone can become a baker, and not everyone can become an airline pilot either. For me it would have been a very poor fit to become a baker or an airline pilot or whatever else. And being an engineer worked badly too. I can’t even understand why I became an engineer. It’s the most meaningless thing I’ve ever done, spending all those years becoming an engineer. But that’s another matter. For others it’s important to be one. For me it was just something there, I think, where my mother had to convince me: “Pål-Esben, you must make sure you get a good education.” And perhaps that was good, but I only used my education for three years, and then it was over. So we all have our unique journey.

Amina: Yes, everyone is equally worthy.

The river of life: flowing or paddling against the current

Pål-Esben: Correct. And we just need to find out what it is that you, that is, your soul, are looking for. The more aware we are of these things, the more we can become game-makers in our own life, in our own corridor. The more unaware you are of this, the more things run on autopilot, and the more you have to be steered by the karmic and dharmic winds and cycles, just to be pushed into what you’ve come here to learn.

But I prefer to take the horse’s reins myself and steer this wild beast, which is what life can sometimes feel like, instead of just letting the horse run free wherever it wants.

That’s what we do in the profound primordial shamanic process of development you’re in: we learn to understand these basic mechanisms, we learn to deal with them, and we learn to use them to design how we flow through our corridor. Which we can also call the river of life.

Far too many people try to paddle upstream in the river of life and say: “No, I want it like this.” Because the intellect and the ego say: “I want it, I want a career, I want more money, I want three holiday cabins”, just because they think that’s what it’s about. But when you reach the point you’ve reached, you understand that this corridor, this river, is about getting into the boat and letting yourself drift with the river, which is then an example of synchronicity.

And if you’re willing to take this self-responsibility we’re talking about, and learn to understand these mechanisms, and handle them and deal with them, you’ll experience a river that isn’t full of rapids and rocks. It’s a pleasant river, which now and then flows a bit faster, but then you come into calm stretches with beautiful nature around you, where you see sunrises and sunsets. That’s very much how it will feel.

But we humans are human, and many say: “No, it won’t be like that, so I’m climbing ashore.” There isn’t much for us on land, because then we say: “No, I don’t want to flow with this river, I don’t want to be in this corridor, I don’t want this problem, I don’t want things to be the way they are now.” No, no, no: enemy, enemy, enemy. And it’ll be like climbing up onto land and thinking you’re sitting there just observing this river. But that’s not why the soul is here. It’s here to flow with the river, walk along this corridor, and learn and experience in a way that brings home the learning themes and the insight the soul is looking for.

We can do it with suffering, emptiness, frustration, hatred, resentment, control, or we can do it with peacefulness, empathy, joyfulness and meaning. Personally, I prefer the latter path.

Amina: Yes, me too. That’s my experience: the more resistance I’ve had to that river, the more suffering there is, regardless of what’s in the river, for better and for worse. The suffering that comes with that resistance is even worse.

Where it all ends: full liberation

Pål-Esben: Yes. Because this is where it all ends, the work we’re doing, that is, the profound primordial shamanic process of development you’re right in the middle of. The day you arrive at what you might call the goal, even though it’s never a goal, you come to the point where you experience full liberation. You experience your full Sahara, everything you are, in timeless and spaceless existence.

The day you experience that, all suffering, all fear, all envy, all insecurity, all anxiety ceases; it vanishes like dew in the sun. That is to say, we live in a very challenging world, where there’s a lot of stress with those who lead the big countries and those things. Even so, you live in this world in harmony with what is, in harmony with nature, without going around every day afraid that now there’ll be a nuclear war, or now the economy will collapse, or whatever it may be. That no longer exists.

That’s when you arrive at what is full liberation. And the day you get there, there’s also no reason for your soul to carry on incarnating in its straitjacket, because then you’ve got the point. Then you’ve gone through the university, and you’ve gone through your soul’s doctoral thesis, and then it’s time to start doing other things. Because I can tell you this: there are much more exciting things to do in this universe than incarnating in this biosphere. That’s the thing.

And when I talk about these things to people who don’t know me, I hear them thinking: “Yes, yes, maybe you, Pål-Esben, but not me. No, I don’t believe this. Can that really be how it is?” I understand the scepticism, but that’s how it is. That’s how I experience my life and reality, and that’s how you’re increasingly beginning to experience it, and more and more of your fellow students are beginning to experience it: being in harmony and peace with existence, instead of in a constant state of fear and torment. And that’s very different, isn’t it, Amina?

Amina: Yes, very, very different. I thought it would never… At one point I thought it was possible to experience a better life, but never what I experience today, when it comes to the inner peace, the inner harmony, this safe place in myself, whatever happens. That’s true even though I can have different feelings and experiences, and of course have a bad day and illness and the whole package. It’s something I wish for everyone. And being able to actually say that it’s possible: going from having lived 30 years in nothing but chaos and as a victim of whatever it may be, to really taking back the power over my own life. Not just taking back the power, but more and more experiences of who I really am, my true nature, which we’ll go much deeper into in later episodes. But it really is something I wish everyone could get to experience and find their way back to.

The grain of sand and the Sahara

Pål-Esben: Yes, it’s beyond words. You see, all of us who grow up in this world think we’re the grain of sand. That’s the metaphor we use. But in reality each and every one of us is, by nature, a gigantic Sahara. This one grain of sand, being in the straitjacket and limited by time and space, and actually being cut off from our Sahara, is by your soul’s design. It’s so that it’s possible to experience in this setting what isn’t possible to experience in the state of oneness and freedom.

And the day a human being begins to plant both feet in the warm sand of the Sahara, things begin to happen, whether you want them to or not. And the day you dive in and are completely embraced by this sand, taking a full sand bath, something else happens in a human being’s life. That’s when these gigantic changes happen: fear ceases immediately. Anxiety ceases immediately. The need to control others ceases immediately. The need to be liked ceases immediately. And so on and so on.

Because you’ve then had experience of what you really are, and understand deep within yourself that when we’re in our material existence, it’s only the little grain of sand that’s a tiny part of me. So why should I get worked up about it? Why should I get worked up about what happens to this grain of sand of mine? Why should I be so stressed about it? That’s what ceases, and that’s what makes this so spectacular.

Amina: Yes. And I’ve had questions from some people I’ve shared some experiences with: “Yes, but doesn’t it become a bit like running away from being human?” And I say: “No, you know what, it becomes even more fun to be human.” Because I feel: oh, good grief, how lucky I am! I can eat strawberries, I can drink milk, which perhaps isn’t the best thing to drink, but I can walk on the grass, I can sing, I can move my hand. You become like a joyful child who almost frightens the people around you, but it becomes so much more joyful to be this human being, fully and completely, yes.

Pål-Esben: That’s what it is. That’s what it becomes. Because you see the grain of sand for what it is. You understand that it’s a grain of sand, but you understand that the grain of sand is important too. Otherwise you, your soul, wouldn’t have put yourself in this straitjacket to experience a separate grain of sand that has no direct contact with the Sahara. I mean, you’re limited in time and space. So for the soul it’s of course important to go through this, this process of experience. So it isn’t that it’s unimportant, but there’s a difference between being trapped by your karma and playing with your karma.

Amina: Yes, yes.

Being the game-maker in your own life

Pål-Esben: And that’s what I do. When I want to, I simply withdraw from the karma and shift into a state that is my true nature, and observe my karma, and the madness, from a distance. But now and then I find it fun to dive fully into my karma. But then I understand what this is. I understand that this is something you don’t need to take too seriously.

You’re then master of your own game: of your karma, your grain of sand and your material existence. And where you yourself are the game-maker, you understand the rules of the game, and you’ve learned to handle the rules of the game. So it isn’t like playing a computer game where suddenly, bang, you’re dead, and then you start a new life, and bang, you’re dead again. No, you know exactly how to position yourself, how to move, how to go on to the next level and those things. You have that power.

Does that mean everything is a bed of roses? No. Shit happens to all of us. But you no longer suffer because shit happens. I think an earlier episode took our bathroom as its starting point. We renovated it a few years ago and then found a water leak, and it cost me about 17,000 euros. That’s when it’s easy to go down for the count. But it’s strange how you laugh at the madness and say: “OK, we can’t do anything about this; we got a new bathroom and underfloor heating and the whole works.” It’s no longer something you suffer over.

Of course, when you go through extreme things… Our body is one of the most complex artificial intelligences in this universe we live in. We’ll also talk about that some time later, when we talk about what AI is. And now it’s become so popular that there are even spirits you can talk to through AI. I think people have gone completely psychotic in this world we live in, but I won’t go into that. I thought The Secret was enough, that people were fooled by that. Now there’s something new, and people fall for it every damned time. Now it’s spirits talking through the AI app. Surely people have to wake up at some point, I think.

But our body is one of the most advanced artificial intelligences, and a perfect interface for our soul to interact with this metaphysical, material world we live in. And these things are also very exciting to look at more closely.

Always a choice

But I think the most important thing of all is that when we think about where we stand in our life today, we all always have a choice. Do we want to carry on with what we’re already doing? Then the last ten years will simply repeat themselves over the next ten years. You don’t need to be psychic to see that. Or you come to the point where you say that enough is enough. Enough is enough. Now perhaps I’m willing to do things wholeheartedly, everything it takes. Before, I’ve been half-hearted. I’ve been on an angel course here and a channelling course there and a bit of astrology there, which is also OK. But then one day you come to the point where you say that enough is enough.

And the day you get there, you need to learn about these things we’re talking about now, so that you eventually become your own game-maker. And then we start with what we talked about in the earlier episodes, and how you’ve built up your process of development to where you stand today. And it isn’t rocket science. It isn’t rocket science. It’s just that there are certain things that have to be done. If you don’t want to do them, that’s OK too, but then you won’t get the kind of experiences you’ve had.

It took me some years too, in suffering and frustration and despondency and all the other problems and all those things. But then came the day I reached that point and said: “Damn it, enough is enough. Now it’s time to wake up and tell yourself: you need to change your ways.” And then the real process began. Only then was I ready to meet my professor.

Up until then I was in pre-school with nursery teachers, when I first learned reiki, as I’ve told you about before. And there’s nothing wrong with reiki, but it isn’t the way to what we’re talking about now. For that you eventually need to work your way up to university. Of course it’s completely different meeting the professor from meeting a pre-school teacher, because you’re treated very differently. You have to be ready for that. As you were. You were ready for it. I’m not the easiest person to deal with, because I’m very direct. But we’re very respectful, and you’ve never been forced to do anything at all. It has always been your free will. You’ve always been free to decide for yourself.

Amina: Yes, yes. And I have to say that even though you’re extremely direct, you’re extremely respectful too. And you always encourage me to find the answer in myself. It isn’t that you say now you go right and now you go left; you present something, and then I can chew on it a bit and think: “Yes, perhaps it’s a bit like that. Oh yes, that was a good bit of input.” So yes, I have to say that.

But yes, sometimes Thor’s hammer comes down, I tell you. I’ve shed a few tears. Oh, good heavens. There have been some transferences and projections, but I’ve got used to it not being about the person I’m reacting to. I mean, it’s not you, it’s me. And I think that’s perhaps one of my better qualities: I don’t point and say that Pål-Esben did this and said that, but I can feel the projections, I can feel the transferences. So I’m very glad I have that in me. And perhaps even more so later on, once we’ve dived into the truth about me and my choices. We’ve done a lot of exciting things in this training.

A process that isn’t for everyone

Pål-Esben: It’s actually the case that a process like the one you’ve been through isn’t for everyone. You come to a certain point in life where you say: “To hell with it, enough is enough.” And you’re really willing to open yourself up to your own shadow sides too, and to stand firm against the resistance we’ll come up against, and all those things. Because it’s a damned circus with the intellect and the ego when you’re going to make these changes, since they hate every kind of change that has to be made.

And one thing that’s certain is that you must have gone through a massive number of processes of change. It’s now two and a half years. No, not two and a half years yet: nearly two and a half years. We’re coming towards the end of this part of the podcast now, and by then we’ll have reached three years. That’s really the time this process takes to be able to bathe in your Sahara, as things stand today, at least at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School. And that’s dramatically faster than the yogic tradition, at any rate.

But this life can be an exciting, exciting, exciting process, if you choose it yourself. It can also be true suffering, if you let the karmic and dharmic winds steer, if you let the karmic and dharmic synchronicities just arise on autopilot. So I like to inspire people to take the horse’s reins in their hands, to have a firm grip on the horse when it comes to which direction you want to go. And what a joyful ride it becomes.

Yes, I’m so impressed with you, and I’m so impressed that you’ve managed to stand firm against the resistance, stand firm against the fear. You’ve never given up, even though it has been difficult. Because it takes something. That’s why I say that with what we’re doing now, with this primordial shamanic process of development, this profound primordial shamanic process of development, you’re at university. And to start at university, you have to be ready to start at university. And who knows whether you’re ready to start at university? Well, each individual does.

But as long as you need simple methods and techniques that are supposed to fix your whole life, you’re not ready for university. Because there are no simple methods or techniques, no snap of the fingers, no hocus-pocus, that can solve this. It’s hard work.

Amina: It definitely is.

Pål-Esben: I’m so impressed. But that’s also the reason you are where you are today.

Amina: Yes, well, it definitely hasn’t come for free, good heavens. But yes, I’m very grateful for everything I’ve learned from you, and for the guidance and support and the insights. And I’m certainly very grateful that you haven’t given up on your path, in your corridor, Pål-Esben.

Why I carry on: the Tibetan friend

Pål-Esben: That’s the thing, that we all… I have a friend who has been a Tibetan monk and master for 50 years. He’s starting to get old now, but as far back as 30 years ago he reached the point where he was spiritually self-realized and all those things. And he’s one of the people I can talk to about what I experience. We laugh about these things now and then. And he says to me: “How long are you going to carry on with this now?” Then I say I don’t know. And then he asks me why I carry on doing it at all. “You don’t need to do this, after all.”

And my answer to why I still do it, at least for a few more years, is compassion. Compassion, humanity, empathy: to be able to help my fellow souls find their way back to reality and the truth, their path and their way home. That’s why I do this. That’s why I’m here in this incarnation.

I intend to do it for a few more years. But there comes a point where, as he says, you’re no longer willing to stick your head into other people’s rubbish bins. That is, sticking your head into all the problems and all of that. Because being a guide isn’t a simple matter. Because it goes like this: I stick my head into your world. In my world everything is completely peaceful. After all, I’ve made peace with everything that is. But when I’m dealing with you, or dealing with others, then the whole of me… I stick my head into you and what you are. It isn’t that simple. You probably notice that too with your clients and your students.

It’s easy to take for granted that for the person helping you, at least at this level, it costs them nothing. It’s a massive thing that demands a lot. That’s why, when I talk with my friend, the Tibetan master, it’s like a gift for me. When I get the chance to talk with someone for an hour, it’s a gift for me, and I take it as something unique. These things aren’t something to take for granted. People think: “Now I’ve paid about 90 euros, so now I’m getting 60 minutes, and that’s that.” No. What you get is a gift from someone who has woken up and begun to understand these mechanisms that allow you to be completely free. Every single minute, the way I see it, is a gift you give to another human being.

So to take it further: this podcast is also a gift to you as a listener, and to those who listen to it. We don’t do this because we have to; we do it to inspire and motivate you to reach the point where perhaps you say: “Enough is enough. Now it’s my time. Now it’s my right to decide to find my way back to the life I’ve dreamed of living my whole life.”

So then I think perhaps we’ll wrap up. Do you have any words of wisdom to finish with, Amina?

Amina: We’ve touched on choices, which are really one of the most important things we make every day. We have these choices from when we wake up until we go to bed. Everything from what am I going to eat, to shall I go right or left, to what shall I wear. One thing I’ve started doing is thinking: “This choice I’m facing now, does it take me closer to where I want to be, or further away from what I want?” And sort of keeping that in the back of my mind all the time. So perhaps some of the listeners can be inspired by my new way of reflecting and making conscious choices too.

Pål-Esben: And I hope you’ve enjoyed being with us, dear listener, because we do this for you. And I hope this has inspired you to look a little more closely at dharmic and karmic synchronicity and the things we’ve talked about, or at least to think about it a little, to mull it over and contemplate it. In the next episode we’ll be switching to another exciting topic. Thank you so much for staying with us all the way, dear listener. We really appreciate your feedback, and a five-star rating on Spotify helps our podcast reach more listeners. And thank you so much for being here with me, Amina. I really appreciate it.

Amina: Likewise, Pål-Esben.

Pål-Esben: Thank you for being with us, dear listener. I hope you’ll join us again in the next episode. And until then: have a truly wonderful day, evening, night or morning, wherever you are listening from. Take care.

Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. We hope Amina’s story has inspired you to explore your own journey of self-discovery and development. Remember that the path from suffering to self-realization can be demanding, but with courage, patience and support from a competent guide, mentor, teacher or therapist, almost anything is possible. We wish you all the best on your journey, and we’ll talk again in the next episode.