From Enlightenment to Intimacy (with Luke Adler)

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back. So I am once again pumped to be here with my man Luke Adler, my good friend and co facilitator of the Heart of Shadow program. And Luke and I were leading a workshop online the other day, and he said this phrase that just immediately I was like, oh, we got to talk about that, because there's so much there. And we were chatting, and he said, you know, it's about moving from enlightenment to, to intimacy. And I'd love for you, Luke, to just kind of give us your first pitch there around what you meant by that.

Luke Adler: Yeah, thanks, Jason. You know, in most, in most spiritual work, I mean, immemorially, when we talk about growth and healing, we will often substitute the word enlightenment or liberation. And if you look at yogic tradition, the kind of goal of the spiritual path is to be liberated. And we could wax on liberation and enlightenment forever. But the idea in general is that we're freed from our sense of separation, our sense of unworthiness, our feeling of not being good enough, ultimately our sense of individuality that we're, we're separate from this kind of whole or cosmic, or to use a common kind of understanding, we're separate from God. And if we're separate from God, then we don't have a sense of deep purpose and meaning. And enlightenment is this pathway to begin to know the divine and to connect with that. And certainly my early years of spiritual growth, I thought, okay, that's the goal. My whole life is dedicated to enlightenment and liberation. I want to become an enlightened being. And what I realized, you know, maybe, maybe seven to 10 years into that pursuit is I actually did start to know God and discovered that that phenomenon, that relationship within myself and all things. And, and then I found that there was something actually much harder than knowing God, and that was being in relationship with human beings. And the, the, the straddling of those two pursuits was not. Not. It wasn't. There was not a clear pathway to that. And it wasn't until I got into more psycho spiritual work and shadow work that I saw, ah, here's a pathway to take you from chasing the big E, you know, enlightenment, to really the, what I would consider the ultimate pursuit, which is the big I, which is intimacy and getting Intimate with life and intimate with people. Intimate with their wounding and their pain and my own pain and becoming spacious enough within. Within my own self to make room for my wounding and those that I love and care about and not be relegated to just stay transcended or in this kind of more enlightened space of consciousness that in some ways is not truly enlightened because it's a way. I'm using enlightenment to stand apart from pain. And it becomes a very dangerous path. It becomes a way of using liberative or meditative techniques in the same way that you would a drug to just get away from what. What's hurting here now in front of me. So that's a. That's just a kind of a brief overview for us to launch from. Toss it.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Luke Adler: This.

Jason Lange: This is so deep. This is so great and so woven into, I think, the work, you know, you and I are passionate about in. In the shadow work that we do in that. Certainly for me, you know, when I was a teenager and going into my early 20s and reading about the mystics and enlightenment, and there. There did become this attachment inside me to this frame of what an enlightened person was. Oh, this idea that if I get enlightened, I'm just going to be happy all the time.

Luke Adler: Right.

Jason Lange: Like, I'm not going to be impacted by the world in certain negative ways. Like I'll just be okay with everything that is. And there's a way, you know, as I examine that over the years, you know, another way to think of this frame we're talking about here is there's a way that can just be moving away from something like we're actually using in and trying to get enlightened. We're trying to move away from aspects of our experience, moving away from aspects of being. And what we're talking about here, this big eye, the path of intimacy, is actually much more about moving towards.

Luke Adler: Right.

Jason Lange: Moving towards, turning towards all of our experience, all of our sensation, all of our feeling, whether it's light and positive or dark and shadowy. Right.

Luke Adler: The.

Jason Lange: The path we're talking about, what I think is pretty different about it, is it embraces all of it, right. The. The. Or as another friend of mine would often say, the sacred and the profane. Like, just the full range of our experience is what we're trying to become close to, including parts of ourselves that most definitely are not enlightened. Right. Like, are the parts that are not the things we're proud of, are not the models for behavior we want to be putting out. Into the world, but that when we're not connected to them, can cause a tremendous amount of harm in ourselves and in our relationships. Yeah.

Jason Lange: Yeah, and I think that's a great, great story to emphasize, you know, a lot of what the shadow work we do is about reconnecting. So it's actually coming back into contact with parts of ourselves, which is another way to, you know, think about this idea of intimacy. We're, we're coming into contact with something that we've pushed away from ourselves or disconnected from ourselves or not been aware of in ourselves or outside of ourselves. And so a lot of this work can happen right internally. We're doing this work with parts of ourselves to become intimate with our full experience and our full range, in addition to turning towards and becoming intimate with the full range of everything in the relationships around us.

Luke Adler: Exactly. Another, another example that, that I was working with someone recently. They were, they were saying that every time they do a, this was also a professional healer of some kind. Every time they do a big event, every time they kind of do a big push to, you know, do a retreat, et cetera, they get sick and there'll be certain, certain pain and a certain chronic pain will arise, particularly in the, in the low back. And so we're doing some work around it. And what, what was, what was evident within 60 seconds is that this was, this was a part of their being that had been gone through really intense trauma as a child and that the aspect of their, of their self really needed things to be slowed down and, and tended to and nurtured. And that when they took on a big project and they had this, you know, this kind of other side of their being, you know, how they dealt with their traumas, they became really dynamic and really expressive and enthusiastic. And so it cultivated this ability to produce, produce these really dynamic healing events. And but while they're doing that, they're totally Unaware of this other aspect of their being that's really wounded and wants some quiet and needs some gentleness. And there's almost this antagonizing relationship between these aspects of their being. Kind of like a sun, moon, yin yang, water, dynamic. And of course, once they become aware, we started doing some work on, you know, staying attuned, quote unquote to their sensitivity, then they could feel, ah, okay, you know, maybe I can start to move at a pace that honors both parts of me. And I'm not kind of just trying to shove this quote unquote, more sensitive part of me into the shadow. I can, I can keep a part of myself open and kind of attuned to my needs and, and not just relegate them to like, oh, my body's hurt, my body's messed up and I need to, you know, see this doctor or this healer to fix it. It's like, no, no, this is about, like you said, come into relationship.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Luke Adler: With something that we have dis, Disowned, displaced, you know, just in a certain sense want to not deal with, not see something we've blocked out. And yeah, I mean, certainly as it relates to the pursuit of enlightenment, many of us, including me, not knowingly, but go into such a pursuit because there was great pain lives, there's, there was dysfunction, there was emotional pain, physical pain. And, and a liberative style path is, is like relief. It's balm to a soul that's suffering. And it's a very necessary step for, for us to get relief from pain like that. And I, I love yoga, I love meditation, I love that world. I still practice and teach it. But I, I do know it can be misused. And there's a certain point when we need to come down from our, our kind of cloud, late laden, liberative cushion and get in the mud with everyone else. And we don't want to do that prematurely. But at some point, you know, the, the world of the living is, is asking for us to participate and become intimate.

Jason Lange: That's, that's so spot on. There's so much there that just comes to mind, you know, first and foremost of which, you know, sometimes these parts of ourselves that we've disconnected from or displaced or whatnot, it, it's not even always a bad thing in a sense. And what I mean by that is something I work a lot with my men on is oftentimes you're right, we, we have these painful experiences when we're young. So then we build a survival strategy to be able to get by in our family of origin or our family system or culture or whatever. And that survival strategy helps protect us, right? It actually helps us survive and it protects us in the world. And the problem is then we become adults. And that very same survival strategy, which was our suit of armor before, is actually what prevents us from getting what we want in the moment, from connecting in the ways we want to now. So it was a gift to us then, but then it becomes a hindrance to us now. And the delicate way we can go in and start to unpack and unwind that armoring so that we can be available now in the ways we want to be and not just continuing to carry for the forward. The programming of before is. Is so important, so crucial. And you know, for men in particular, in just my experience, this, the path of enlightenment, let's say it's. It's a big draw to a lot of men, right? That kind of transcending or, you know, what we call in our culture, this move to waking up, right? We're waking up from our bodies and connecting to that higher, higher self, that higher vision, transcending what's happening in the moment. And that's totally necessary and totally beautiful. And we're not here to say that that's not a critical part of any journey or path, but a lot of men in particular, and you know, I would say a chunk of the spiritual world become over identified with that. And what we're talking about in the shadow work and in this movement we're exploring here today, you know, from chasing enlightenment to also coming into contact with intimacy, is the path of waking down, right? It's actually coming deeper into our experience, deeper into our bodies, deeper into our sensations, deeper into all aspects of ourselves and learning to re. Embrace and connect with them. Where there's often quite a lot of energy or emotional material or vitality or things that surprise us that we maybe had forgotten about or not touched in a long time. And we want to, you know, balance these two paths. But I think for a lot of men, the work right now, at least in what I'm seeing with my guys, it. It's really about the path of waking down more than it is the path of waking up. It's really. There's a need for us to come into our emotional bodies, into our physical bodies, and really be intimate like we're talking about, with the full range of our experience and the full range of the experiences we're having in our relationships. You know, one of my teachers in my 20s was this amazing Zen Guy and Junpo Roshi, who. Who used to say this phrase that I think is just, I mean, such a deep phrase for the path of waking down of your angst is your liberation. Right. And what he meant by that was, over time you come to find that, oh, it's actually moving towards my angst or my conscience. That's where the deepest freedom lies. I come be with them. I really turned forth and turned away from them. Right. Not take it away, not try to skip that part or. But really just become intimate with it. Right. In that. What a path forward that is in life where, whether it's in my intimate relationship with my partner or my kids or myself, we really start to pay attention to, oh, wait, where's. Where is the stuckness? Where is the tension? Where is the angst? Because it's in moving towards that that I'm probably going to discover so much and potentially actually liberate so much that's been stuck or left behind or frozen or contained in some manner.

Luke Adler: Yeah. There's two powerful things you shared there that I want to highlight. What is this idea of burning? Or in the Vedic philosophy, they call it tapasya. I think it's the same in Buddhist, which is when you're burning your wood, you're kind of in the fire of your purification, which is a way of talking about facing your shadow in a certain sense. So I want to talk about that. The other piece I want to talk about is when we're transcending or kind of keeping ourselves apart from our pain. In a way, we're creating a boundary to keep ourselves safe from painful and, and boundaries are so important to allow us to gestate and incubate and gain the strength and the resources to at some point then, you know, kind of awake down, as you're saying, Jason, so that we can. We can, we can have the vitality and lucidity to look at what's really painful. And I, and what I see on the path is that that's really the purpose of whether it's meditation or enlightenment or, hey, I'm going to set a boundary with you. It's. I'm doing that for myself so that I can. I can stay aware and not dissociate around this energy that might be triggering or fracturing for my consciousness. So I really want to honor that. When boundaries need to come forward, whether that's used in a meditative way or a literal way, like, I just can't be around this person, it's because we. We just don't have the capacity for it yet. So at some point we do gain that capacity and we're kind of nudged out of the womb of our comfort saying, okay, it's time to face this thing. And then we hit the fire. Or as I said that the burning, or the Sanskrit word is tapascha, this fire of our own karma being kind of transmuted. And the distinction I want to make between what you and I do and how that's typically held in a yogic environment or even a quote unquote shadow group is that when, when you're, when your, your shadow content's coming up or people say your stuff is coming up, you might, you might contemplate it. So you might write it down in a journal. You might take that journal and, and burn a few pieces of paper. You might talk about it with your friends. You might sit with that material, meaning you're sitting down, you're closing your eyes and you're just feeling the sensations. And all of that is, is a powerful way to begin to sense, to move your awareness through some of the pain in your system and to eventually integrate it. What we do is a little bit. It's a. It's more experiential.

Jason Lange: It's.

Luke Adler: There's a little bit more of a risk in it because we do this group religion, we do this work relationally. And that requires a few things. One is a very skilled set of facilitation, and the other is that. That people are willing to be vulnerable and share. And why it's so powerful to do this as a practice in a group is that you find so quickly that everyone is actually in the same boat together. We've all incarnated onto this place called Earth with very similar issues. And when we take the risk to share those issues, to open your mouth, move your tongue and make sound, you find, whoa, you're hurting in similar ways that I'm hurting. And in fact, the wounding that we're both living with is resonant. There's some parts of it that really match up. So this, if you want to talk about a spiritual practice, this kind of transcendental thing happens when people share at such a deep place. And the shadow work really becomes this relational path of liberation. And here I'm using liberation in a different sense. It's something that liberates you into relationship in the presence with others. So you're not being liberated from your pain into the cave of your enlightenment or the ashram, still having a solitary experience within your own being. You're liberated into the community you're liberated into the relational love. And it's so powerful because there's this exponential experience of connection. And liberation is different than transcendence. Transcendence implies you're taking the state. You're. You're here, and then you're moving. You're moving from here to there. But the place that you once were, you're not a part of that anymore.

Jason Lange: You're, you're, you're, You're.

Luke Adler: You're different. Liberation is different. Liberation says, no, no, no. We're making space for everything. And that pathway to everything is what we call intimacy. It's making space for all that you are. And that's a different pursuit than enlightenment, than the enlightenment of the individual soul. Implicit in intimacy is you're looking for liberation. You're looking for freedom for all parts of your being and everyone and everything you care about. And it's. It's a different kind of undertaking. And that's what we're doing in Heart of Shadow. That's our. That's our offering to people.

Jason Lange: And what I love about that is the path there doesn't always look like what we typically think of as the path of enlightenment. The path there can be messy, it can be hard, it can be extraordinarily vulnerable. But it's what's on the other side of that that. That is so ultimately liberating, like you're saying. Right. It's. It's. It's this paradox that, you know, I'm increasingly experiencing in my own life, and I feel like witnessing in men I work with that the easiest way to transcend is to first fully be with. When we're fully with it, then something just naturally kind of radically opens up. Yeah. A new space or a new way to. To relate to ourselves or these parts of ourselves or each other. And that's just a step that we often want to. I have often wanted to skip it in my life and that men often want to skip in their lives. And this stuff can stay with us for a long time. Right. I'm just coming back off a different retreat where got to work with some men who got to move some emotional energy and some shadow material that they had never touched or been able to access before in their lives. And we're talking guys in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.

Luke Adler: Wow.

Jason Lange: Right. And we carry that. We really carry that with us in some pretty deep ways. And it has an impact on our well being, our emotional health, our physical health, our spiritual health. And what we're saying here is particularly in the power of a group when we can turn towards all of that. And I mean, just. The other thing I just want to mention is just how utterly transformative it can be for us as men to not have to be or do anything in a specific moment, right. When we're allowed to actually just be in our experience, right? There's. There's no way I need you to be other than be with what is. And that can be a shockingly rare place for a lot of men to be. Like, oh, my God, there's no way I don't have to perform here. I don't have to be the enlightened, happy guy. I don't have to be the achiever, the doer. I'm allowed to just be a mess or be uncomfortable or be dark. Right? Be angry, be vengeful. Things that often we have to kind of hold at bay. And something happens to us when we're welcomed into a space like that. I know for me, it's like a part of my soul just kind of relaxes, and I feel embraced and connected to the people around me in a way that I just don't in my everyday life.

Luke Adler: And what we find in. In meditative communities, spiritual communities, is there is no space for that. I mean, I've been part of several in my life, and they're beautiful, and I'm still a part of some. But there is not space in traditional kind of meditative enlightenment work to. To kind of bring that kind of expression forward where. Where it's safe to. To get into vengeful things, lustful things, rageful emotions. You know, maybe deep grief is allowed, but to a point, there's kind of like a decorum and comportment of how to behave in a meditative and ashram environment, whether it's Buddhist or Hindu or even Catholic or whatever it might be. Exactly. There's a kind of propriety, right? It's like, well, let's. Let's still be like, you know, you know, good. Good Protestants here, you know, or whatever. Good Hindus, you know. And this is what's. It's hard to convey what you and I are talking about unless you experience it. But implicit in what we're talking about is a few things. One is the safety, of course, but two, I think I might have said this to you, Jason, six, seven years ago in Hawaii. So actually, I think I did say this to you, or in, like, a hotel in Waikiki. I was like, so, like, what are the rules? You know, like, what? I don't think you, like, looked at me you know, very compassionate as you are.

Jason Lange: You didn't.

Luke Adler: You just said, well, what do you mean? I was like, well, like, can you say certain things? And he's like, I think you said, well, you can just do whatever you want to do.

Jason Lange: I'm like, okay.

Luke Adler: Like, I didn't really get it. And then we had our first session, and our. And our good buddy, I think he was the first to go, and he's snotting and sneezing and, you know, yelling and like, what the fuck? Like, is this normal? Like, is this. There was, for me, something broke in this session of. I was never showed an environment, you know, maybe in my family, as a child, I've seen my dad rage or something, but therapeutically, to just bring all that forward, it was. It shattered so much of the construct of who I was allowed to be in my life. And the gift of that, the gift that I've given myself since that first session I had was that I get to bring all of myself, at least to our men's group and the ones that I lead fully, and then I get to offer that invitation to other people, and they get to have that same. If you want to talk about a liberative experience, they get to be liberated into a. Into a. Not just a culture, but an energetic condition where anything that moves through their being, there's a safe space for that to come forward. And it's held with a lot of dignity and respect. It's hard to convey how beautiful and profound that is, but maybe that point is starting to come across as. As I share this. This anecdote. But. But there is a kind of Neo Matrix moment of like, here's what was allowed and now here. Here's what's now possible changes you. If you want it, it can change your life permanently, you know, in. In this truly liberative way that's not just, you know, this relegated to your individual private enlightenment on. In your journal and in your contemplative moments, but into your relationships where they begin to truly reflect the power, nuance, and beauty of your soul in a. In a. In an online expressed way.

Jason Lange: Um, yeah, I think that's some. I certainly hear a lot from guys I work with. The desire to be in relationship where they can bring all of themselves right, where, you know, that's another way to think about it. Like, I can just be myself. All of me is allowed here. And for me, as a man, just how powerful I feel actually after I've entered into spaces where I am allowed to bring all of myself, I Actually feel powerful of like, wow, okay, There's a lot in there. Feel more in touch with all aspects of myself. And that process that you went through in your first circle with me and some of the others, I think that's also a thing to note of just why we're so passionate about doing this work in groups. So Luke and I do this work one on one with men and women. But I think this is particularly important for men in that so many men have not had examples of how else they could show up. All right. We've never actually seen what it means for a man to be fully in his anger, but still fully present and safe, or fully in his grief, in tears and heartbreak, but still connected to a type of power and the ability to often see that can be the start of the opening for so many of us, right? Like, oh, fuck, I didn't even know that was a choice. Nobody even told me that was on the table, right? That was on the menu that I could be like that because I've never seen it. All I've seen is the lone wolf tough guy culture or the total kind of soft and collapsed, kind of more nice guy thing. I didn't even know I had these other choices available to me and that. And often, you know, I saw this again on my retreat as, you know, men witnessing other, other men in their work that starts their own work. That's actually the beginning of it. And then it starts to evoke something and accelerate this process of just opening and becoming closer to all aspects of ourselves. And then when we can do that in a safe and trusted community and find that we're held and we're accepted, it is deeply liberating. It's, oh, okay, wow, now what? Right? It, it is like a. It's a whole new world moment of, oh, if I don't have to bullshit here, then, whoa, what's possible? What does life look like from this place, from this kind of community? And this work, the shadow work, I think is just such a important piece of that and that everybody's work and journey is going to look different, but we do find these common themes underneath. And there's just something awe inspiring and frankly enlivening for me about seeing another man come alive. Like there, there's a. It's contagious in a way, right? It spreads in, in a way that brings a lot of life force to me and juices me up to be even more in my life as I see another man stepping into his own.

Luke Adler: So fascinating. It's like a certain In a certain way, we're bringing the liberative experience of, you know, deep meditation into relationship in that, like, for a meditator, if you've been meditating for a longer period of time, your meditations can start to become more powerful. You can feel the shakti in the body. You can feel the energy. You can feel it growing through the subtle body, feel more connected to kind of the spiritual plane in a certain sense. What's fascinating about this work is it's. It's. It's not as if what's actually happening is when a man, woman, when a human being shares their deepest authenticity and truth, it activates the. The sacred energy, the vital force, and another per. In other people in that space. It's like you're saying, Jason, you feel more energized when someone shares their truth. So it activates the living vital force and another. That activity of life force in another person's body starts to churn up what's been keeping their vitality asleep and that wants to come forward in the group, and that process begins to light up. Each person in that space. That living energy of life wanting to come more forward and express itself is like a. Is like a wildfire energetically in a group like that. And if it's well tended by two, you know, two firefighters, so to speak, or hotshots or whatever, whatever the guides want to be called, then that fire can move in a very. In a very elegant and dignified way that's honoring of. Of everyone's history and longing that shared everyone, everyone deep inside has this longing for more life and more expressiveness and more alignment with purpose. That phenomenon, it happens every time because we all have the. The kind of ingredients for fire. You know, we all have this. This longing, and all we're needing is a spark. And when. Oh, yeah, our job, in a certain sense, is like, we're tending this fire. We're putting the logs together, we're putting the kindling on, we're getting the right fuel set up. And then it's just waiting for one man to go. Last episode for one man to crack open and go, I want more than what I have. What the path that was laid before me that I followed and tried to follow really well, it didn't light my soul on fire. I got all the cool things. I got a truck. I got a nice wife, I got some kids, got a good job, whatever the circumstances might be. But my soul, my heart is not on fire for life anymore. What the fuck happened? This was not what I thought it would be. And then, you know, you meet a guy like Jason and Luke and you go, okay, I don't know what these guys are about. I've never met them. I listen to their podcasts. Sound interesting. They sound like honest, honest people. Looking at the testimonials, these guys seem like real people. You can. You can vet our credentials, but what you're sensing from Jason and I is something that's alive and something that's real and something that is already within you. You just are needing that spark. That's all it takes. And our. Our job, what we're good at, what we've dedicated our lives to doing, is we can't necessarily spark it for you, but we can set up all the parameters for that. That charge to come through, and it comes through every time. Because it's your longing for freedom, for expression, love, and connection that fuels that fire and creates an inferno. Because you're going to get a men's group that's going to love, support, and fuel you on your journey from the moment you start our program, you know, immemorially, potentially. And, you know, it's. It's why. It's why we've dedicated our lives to it. Because it, to us is. It's. It is. The purpose for our life is to help grow, in a sense, that fire, not just for you men out there, but for everyone. And we all have a certain stake in that in this world. And in a certain sense, enlightenment, it's just not enough. Enlightenment is not enough. It's not enough to just grit yourself. You know, our invitation is to say, oh, we got to help each other. And the path of intimacy is that path. It's. It's challenging to face what's painful. But if you're looking for a cause in your life, if you're looking for a higher purpose, if you're looking for more than what you have, this is a path. This. This is a path, and it involves everyone that you love. And yeah, in a word, we call that intimacy.

Jason Lange: Boom, there it is.

Luke Adler: Yeah.

Jason Lange: So I don't. I don't know if I can add anything more beautiful than that, but if you're starting. If you're a man out there and you're starting to feel that calling where you have a sense, you know, I'm ready for more in my life. I'm ready to step into something. I've heard about this men's work thing. I've heard about shadow work thing. Well, step in. Right?

Luke Adler: It's. Luke Adler: Awesome.

Jason Lange: Always a pleasure, my friend.

Luke Adler: Yep, always.

Jason Lange: If you're interested in working with me around dating relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to Evolutionary Men apply.