#336 How to find inner peace and transform your life through meditation and spirituality, with Tom Cronin.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
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Please note that while an effort is made to provide an accurate transcription, errors and omissions may be present. No part of this transcription can be referenced or reproduced without permission.
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Tom Cronin  0:00  
Spirituality isn't something that is a concept that we can't think spirituality, because that's the thought form thought forms is one of the vehicles the physical, mental and emotional vehicle. Spirituality is an experience that doesn't have a thought in it. And spirituality is beyond the limitations of a physical form. And it's beyond the feeling body, the emotional form.

Agi Keramidas  0:25  
Welcome to the personal development mastery podcast, empowering you with the simple, consistent actions needed to master yourself and create a life of purpose and fulfilment. I'm your host, Agi Keramidas. And my mission is simple to inspire you to take action towards a fulfilling life. In this podcast, I invite myself inside the minds of remarkable people and I distil their wisdom for you. So if you're ready to find practical insights that you can implement right now, make sure you follow the podcast and get the episodes as soon as they are released. Speaking of insights, would you like a free copy of my first book 88 actionable insights for life. Just over a year ago, I started writing a book based on the conversations with these remarkable people ahead doing this podcast. I am thrilled that the book is now finished and you as my listener can get it exclusively before the official book launch. And for free, go to our economy.com/ 88. And coming to today's episode, if you'd like to discover how meditation can impact your mental health and well being, then the following conversation with my guest, Tom Cronin is for you. By the end of the podcast today you will find out the relations between meditation spirituality and interconnectedness. You will also discover a vision of a future society where the pillars that uphold the current systems are transformed to prioritise collective well being and consciousness rather than individual success. This is one of the most important episodes I've done so far. 

Agi Keramidas  2:22  
And before we dive in an announcement after the last few months that personal development mastery had weekly episodes, I'm excited to share with you that starting today, we're going back to two episodes a week, a conversation. each Monday and the shorter episode on Thursday, either a solo or a snippet of wisdom. I'm looking forward to providing you with even more actionable insights and practical wisdom. So let's dive right into today's episode. 

Agi Keramidas  2:58  
Today, I'm delighted to speak with Tom Cronin, Tom, you spent 26 years in finance markets as one of Australia's leading brokers. When the anxiety addictions depression and chaos, you were experience had hit a crisis point, you discovered meditation as a way out and you say that it completely transformed your world, both personally and professionally. You are the founder of the stillness project, a global movement to inspire 1 billion people to sit in stillness daily, you have published six books and meditation up and produced the HitFilm. The portal, you're passionate about reducing stress in chaos in people's lives. Tom, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to speak with you today.

Tom Cronin  3:55  
Hey, thanks. Great to be here. Thanks for inviting me along today.

Agi Keramidas  3:59  
It's a while your topics and your wisdom, I believe will bring so much value to the listener. So I've been very much looking forward to the conversation and we will talk for sure about meditation, but also spirituality and some other elements. Before we go there. Tom. Would you like to give us a key defining moment in your journey that maybe set the stage for you to become who you are today and of course shutting irrelevant to this conversation?

Tom Cronin  4:37  
Yeah, it was really two moments in time that I think are very significant in where I am today. The first one was in sort of February 1996. When I had a nervous breakdown. It was really a culmination of many years of drug addiction. Late nights very deep neglect to my mental and physical well being lots of drinking lots of drugs, lots The party was a hedonism. And then one day, my whole system just collapsed, it kind of broke down. And I was quite incapacitated at that point after many years of insomnia and anxiety and panic attacks and depression. And what that led me to was an interesting sort of dark night of the soul. And really the sort of the, the, sort of the worst case scenario that I had to get to the breaking point. And then interestingly, not long after that, literally, just a few weeks, I discovered meditation. And I'd never come across meditation in my life. But it was the fact that the first part in that journey had to happen before the second part, and that journey had to happen. And how it happened was that I was at home, I was having mental health leave from work, I couldn't go to work as a broker. And I was watching TV. And while I was watching TV, there was a documentary about a person who was a very successful businessman, but he was talking about how we use meditation to help him become successful. And that was one of those sliding door moments where if I wasn't at home, at that point, with my mental health leave, I wouldn't have seen the documentary. And who knows, I might never have picked it up. So it's just one of those two defining moments of having that sort of breakdown, and then finding meditation. And then that was really like the trajectory. So the breakdown was the sort of the crash, and in the meditation was the sort of the elevator, lift upwards. And that happened very, very quickly. It was quite transformational for me.

Agi Keramidas  6:27  
Was that kudos a specific kind of meditations that you were doing? And also, I want to ask you, what are what were your immediate benefits? Because you the way you describe it in Muscovy is something very intense, or I don't know if it was profound. So what what happened, then, yeah, it's

Tom Cronin  6:47  
very distinct, very specific, what happened, I did explore lots of different meditations, I did a lot of research. And you know, there was chakra healing and rebalancing, and mindfulness exercises. But it wasn't until I came across a particular style at the time, it was called transcendental meditation also goes by the name of Vedic meditation, where you get a particular mantra, and the beautiful thing about the transcending meditation was twofold. The first benefit that was very significant, and I'll tell you about the impact that had on me, but the first thing that happened was it puts your physical body into profoundly deep state of rest, very quickly. So it was this physiological, profound, deep state of rest that was happening in the meditation that allowed my body to get out of the sympathetic and into the parasympathetic nervous system and start healing itself. But the second thing was this expansion of mind when you transcend beyond the thinking place, we call this Toria. When you get into that fourth state beyond thinking, then something really significant starts to happen, you get out of the recurring thoughts that you're having to start accessing a field of conscious awareness. So what sort of, I guess on a physiological level, and on a expanded mind or spiritual level, and the benefits that I started noticing very quickly within the week was that I had chronic insomnia, I just couldn't sleep, I was riddled with insomnia, but I just literally was falling asleep, everywhere. In that first week, it was a real breath of fresh air to actually be able to sleep. So that was a big shift. And by being able to sleep, plus getting the deep rest in the meditation and the sleep, that was really allowing my body to heal. And very quickly as I got out of the sympathetic nervous system, and you start producing more bio chemicals, like oxytocin and serotonin and melatonin, a lot of the addictions and the cravings started to just melt away very quickly, my depression started to lift, the anxiety and the panic attack started to fade away. And I noticed quite a significant shift within just a matter of days and weeks, and I went back to work and continued on as a broker for 16 more years.

Agi Keramidas  8:45  
Oh, that's kind of a surprising thing, because usually people who go through such a transformation because you mentioned the dark night of the soul. So that preceded your transformation with meditation. So many people during that time realise that part of the reason why I have been in such a state goes because of my career. So for you it was something different, then,

Tom Cronin  9:18  
yeah, and it's really important that we understand this. And it's important with this, pause for a moment to reflect on that. Because we currently have a world that is very deeply coded and conditioned to believe that the external world is the problem. And we have this inherent belief system that if I can only change the outside world, then my inside world will be in a better state. And what that does is it really disempowers us and it means it's away constantly trying to buy things or move things or change things, so that we can feel happy. Work wasn't the problem. What was the problem was my inner state and when I cultivated my inner state, eventually what happens is we don't be come completely immune, but we find that we have greater sovereignty and greater equanimity to be in the world, but not ruffled or disturbed by the world. And I think this is one of the keys to finding fulfilment is that we're deeply conditioned to think that it's in an acquisition or an experience, a partner a job, particular amount of money, will never get there, through that. That model will never get there.

Agi Keramidas  10:27  
Thank you for this beautiful Lancer. And you know how you you said that work was not a problem, but your interstate was on how you change the the interstate and a beautiful description you gave there. So thank you. I have a question regarding meditation, I actually have many. But let's start. Let's Let's proceed a little bit with the story. Because eventually you became a meditation teacher. So can you tell me? What inspired you to do that? And what changes did that make?

Tom Cronin  11:07  
Yeah, look, I mean, meditation played such an integral role in changing my life. You know, at the moment, we have a lot of the world with a state of stress, which is showing up in all sorts of things like insomnia and anxiety and panic attacks, depression, depression. And unfortunately, the problem, the way we're treating this is by not coming to the root cause of that, which is for most people, not all, but certainly for a lot of people. The root cause of that is that we're in the sympathetic nervous system too much. We're just in a in an unco he Civ and and coherent system, a body system. And that we really need to get them first and foremost into deep breaths that happens in the meditation and get their mind out of the recurring patterns, your illogical patterns that they're in, so that they can start to recalibrate and reset themselves at a higher level. And so that was the way it was for me. And it was phenomenal, how quickly things changed without the medication without all the talking just simply by allowing my body to heal itself. And so I became very passionate about trying to support as many people as possible by getting them out of these stressed states, and these deteriorated states, and giving them access to the fullness of who they are. This is an ongoing journey. It's not like it's a semi arrive, and you're enlightened. So it's even for myself, I'm still on the path and still peeling back layers. But certainly, there's an improvement. And we experience a better experience, day after day through this spiritual discovery and spiritual exploration and meditation.

Agi Keramidas  12:42  
The question that comes to mind, you know, so many people, and hopefully, the listener has a personal experience of meditation. So they, they are meditating, hopefully, frequently or daily. My question is regarding you know, there are different kinds of meditations. And you talked about the Transcendental Meditation earlier. But there are so many different, let's say, paths, or methods or techniques of meditation. So what would you say for someone who, you know, has tried, let's say a few different ways of meditation has done some, quote, unquote, progress, as loosely defined as that means. However, they still haven't, you know, reach that state that you described earlier? Or the those? What do you think about this?

Tom Cronin  13:43  
Look, I mean, there's so many different mechanisms and tools to help improve our life. You know, I do ice bars, that is sonar. I do yoga, I do breath work. Some people do plant medicine. There's different styles of meditation, there's yoga, there's chi Kong, there's healing, so all of them contribute in some way, shape, or form to improving our experience of life. And it's not to disregard or dismiss any of them. I think what's really critical as a human being to have the full experience of what it is to be human is to not ignore one essential component of what our human experience consists of. We have a physical form, that's our physical apparatus, the body, we have a mental form, which is the software in the brain that's driving the apparatus. We have a feeling body, which is our emotions, the sensations that move through the body. But there's a fourth layer, which for a lot of us gets very ignored. And spirituality isn't something that is a concept that we can't think spirituality. I had a woman get quite upset when I said to her that you can't think your way to spirituality, because that's the thought form thought forms is one of the vehicles the physical, mental and emotional vehicle Spirituality is an experience that doesn't have a thought in it. And spirituality is beyond the limitations of a physical form. And it's beyond the feeling body that the emotional form. And to get to that experience of existence without physical, mental and emotional layers or little denseness, is critical. Because until we have that, then we're going to be caught in the limitations and the structure in the form of the physical, mental and emotional body. And so to have that unbounded, infinite, eternal, permanent experience of conscious awareness, just presence, then we're always going to be falling short of what it is the complete human experience. And so, for me, one of the things that I've found in doing a lot of research and been studying meditation techniques for 27 years now, very few of them will actually take you to that state we call Toria. The fourth state that is where you have an experience of conscious awareness, where you're not thinking, when you're not in a, in a limitation of your physical form, and you're not in the sensation of the emotional form. And students who come out of meditation will be on their first weekend and meditating with me, they'll go, I don't know where it went, just them. But that was phenomenal. What was that, and they can't localise it because it wasn't limited to their physical apparatus, they can't identify it as a thought form because it wasn't in the mind, as far as the thought of the mind. And they can't identify the sensation of it because it wasn't in an emotion. And it was something bigger and more permanent and masam. And still, but it was still presence. And it still was in existence, there was a reality there that they couldn't identify with. And I think, for me doing a lot of research into meditation techniques, what I found was that there are very few that will actually give you that direct experience into that realm. And I think it's important that we, as humans, do get it direct experience into that realm.

Agi Keramidas  16:49  
Absolutely. And that's why I was asking, because this experience that you described that stillness. Many, many of us do meditate with that. I won't say purpose, but you know, this intention or this desire, if you want. And I know that these words sometimes sound a little bit strange when we talk about these things. But you said that there are very few techniques that can lead one there, can you name them more so that, again, get an understanding, I suppose TM is one of them.

Tom Cronin  17:28  
Yeah, transcendental meditation because the idea of transcending, to transcend means to go beyond. So the premise of that meditation technique is to go beyond thinking physical and motional form. Vedic meditation is a similar sort of style, just a different name. primordial sound technique is another form of that type of meditation. I know art of living, and does some type of this transcending styles of meditation, and look for passionate meditation, they, there's many different styles that I believe, will give you that experience of Zen pneus Zen, this means, you know, to, to be in just simply conscious awareness just to be in silence and not having the thought. And, you know, there's quite a few that will give you that experience. I believe, I haven't done plant medicine. But I believe that is some form of transcending beyond physical, mental and emotional, but I'm not sure because from what I gather, people that have that plant medicine experience, seem to still have a lot of sensations going on, whilst they're having it and they're still not really in the, from what I gather anyway. It's sort of a transcendent, silent experience. So it could be maybe a pathway I'm not sure

Agi Keramidas  18:41  
if you're enjoying this episode, you will find great value and implementable tools in my book 88 actionable insights for life. As my listener you can get the book for free and exclusively before its official public launch, go to keramidas.com/ 88 for your free copy. And now let's get back to the episode you mentioned about your your clients with the spirituality, you can't think that way into your spirituality. There was something that I read that you were talking about and you know, with many people, when they think of spirituality, they tend to consider it as something separate from you know, their career or their success or their everyday life. It's like another part. But you say that, you know, success and spirituality come together. So please explain this to me.

Tom Cronin  19:42  
Yeah. Success is in spirituality. So spirituality is the pervasive, permeating it tonality of everything. Just at the subtlest level, that's all so it's like, the cloud is in the sky. And the cloud is As part of the sky, but the sky isn't the cloud, necessarily. And so spirituality is something that the forms are in. And so everything is part of spirituality, it's just that it's in different layers of density. So the what the analogy I like to use is that the densest form of water is ice. The next least dense layer of water is water liquid. The next is steam. So you can actually still see steam and you can feel steam. And then the next one is vapour, which you can't say it's non non any can't actually identify it or contain it. Yet, they're all water. They're all h2o. And it just has a different way of expressing itself. And that's what spirituality is, in my mind. Spirituality is the forms and the phenomenon, and the space in between. And it's the emptiness of everything in between the forms and phenomenon as well. Everything is spirituality, it's just how much awareness is it of spirituality. That's the variability here. And I think for us, the journey is to peel back layers of identification with the misconceived idea of what we are, and to start to experience the essential fundamental absolute quality of who we are, or what we are, which is, which is formlessness and infiniteness and boundlessness, which is spirit.

Agi Keramidas  21:38  
Thank you, Tom. I will slightly change the sizes, but the the question came up to me quite intensely. And, you know, when one is in their path of development of growing as a human being as a soul, there is often that period, referred to as the shadow work that they need to go through in order to, you know, progress on that spiritual path. So I wanted to ask some of your thoughts and wisdom on this shadow work. How does it express itself? Or do you think there is a beneficial way or a more beneficial way to deal with it?

Tom Cronin  22:28  
Yeah, yeah, Shadow Work. Being aware of our shadow side is an important part of the process. And I certainly still have a shadow side, it's something that it's always, no matter how far I run, or how much I try to hide, it's still there with the pesky thing. It's a bit of a nuisance at times. And even just that statement of mine, just then it's a bit of a nuisance of time is something that I have to work on. Because I've had an immense sense, at times of loathing, for my shadow side, and a distaste and even verging on a hatred for this shadow side of mind that's caused great deals of pain and suffering in mind and other people's eyes over many years. And we all have a shadow side. So if you think of, there's only one thing that doesn't have a shadow. And that's the light, the sun, everything else has a shadow Cloud has a shadow, a tree has a shadow, the sunflower has a shadow a B has a shadow, everything has a shadow. And because it's a form, and it's the imperfection of the perfection. So the only thing that doesn't have a shadow is the divine or God or source, whatever you want to call it, because it's not the form, every form, will have the ability to create a shadow from the radiance and luminosity of that divine once it becomes broken symmetry from formlessness, and divinity into form. Now, of course, it's still always the divine, it's just that it's now taking on a denseness and a seeming separation. And so what I've learned to do, and I'm still learning to do is to acknowledge that as long as I'm I believe, anyway, unless I've yet to find, in all my years of research have yet to find a truly enlightened master that doesn't have any shadow side whatsoever. And it's interesting just for the last 10 years, so many enlightened masters are suddenly being pulled up over hot coals because their shadow side still exists, and they've been trying to suppress it for a long time. And so, it's a really interesting area for us to explore. And what I'm learning to do is to reconcile, and, and to be present with not just mine, but also everyone else's. You know, we do a lot of finger pointing in our world at the moment. And it's very easy for us to criticise politicians or organisations, companies, individuals that we don't like because of there's something about them that we think is at fault but All the time we're pointing fingers, you know, we have three fingers pointing back at ourselves and why we see it in the outside world is because we haven't reconciled or we haven't acknowledged or we haven't learned to live with, and be compassionate about our own shadow side. And I think that we've got to learn to do that, because we're going to be very discontented very. Yeah, there'll be a lot of suffering continuing on in our lives. And it's a, it's a really tricky area to get into, because we want to be perfection, we want to be the good guy, we want to be holy, one of the same way, we want to not have faults, we don't want to hurt people, who some people don't want to hurt people. But you know, it's just the nature of the fallibility of the forms, from divinity going into this earthly realm. And from what I'm gathering and what I'm seeing in my own research, that it's, it's, it's seems to be there, no matter how much work you do.

Agi Keramidas  26:06  
Thank you for this beautiful answer. Film. Yeah, there was something you talked about reconciling and you mentioned the word compassionate. And I think becoming more compassionate is something that happens, the more one meditates it's one of the traits or the qualities if you want that, the Enhance will get enhanced, and I've seen you say that meditation can play a part in changing the world. So talk to me about that. And also, how was that related to the stillness, project?

Tom Cronin  26:51  
Yeah, with the micro experience of our own individual pursuits, and separation, and then the macro, which is our position in the world and how the world is. And one thing I recognise from my own spiritual journey is that the more I transcended my own individual egoic identity, which is my thoughts, my feelings and my physicality, and started to access more of that subtle unified field, which is almost like a quantum field of intelligence, that we're starting to hear more and more about beautiful people like Joe Dispenza told me more about this, and Esther Hicks and Abraham as well as amazing, people are starting to realise that there's this underlying unified field beyond the form, like the wave experiencing the ocean. And as we start to have more of these spiritual practices coming into our world, and more people experiencing that subtle level of unification, what happens by default, is you start identifying more with that collective field than you do with the individual field over time. And that's just a default of happening that happens when we do a lot of transcending in meditation, I believe, anyway, it's one of the, I think one of the key things that we start to become, in that inter woven subtle field of wellness that keeps humanity plants the planet, the universe interconnected. And the analogy I like to use is that the wave collapsing in on itself and becoming one with the ocean, but as it starts to do that, on regulate regular basis, from wave into ocean, wave into ocean wave into ocean through regular daily meditation, what happens over time is, even though it's back to being a wave in an individualised form, it still retains its awareness and its experience of the ocean. And when it becomes a realisation of its oceanic status, it starts to realise that and see and witness and experience all other waves as an extension of it. So by default, the next step in the process is that that person can't but help experience themselves as other. And this is where compassion gets born out of, because it's very hard for my hand to pick up a hammer and hit my toe, even though they're very different. They look different, the hand looks different from the foot. They have very different functions. They're a long way apart, but they're actually part of one whole body. And that whole body will suffer if that hand was to hit the toe. And that's what this importance of meditation why I believe that we're going to have a very different world when we have more people transcending because by default, we're going to create different businesses that are impacting in supporting and uplifting the collective the whole. And that's not just other humans. It's the bees of the Phone Guy. It's the whales in the ocean, it's the air. It's the trees, it's everything. And we realise that we're actually part of this inter woven connection. And we start to see that matrix, we start to become aware of that matrix, we start to live as that matrix and inter woven web that is inseparable. And by default, from there, we start to experience compassion and love.

Agi Keramidas  29:52  
Thank you. I want to stay with this a little bit more and because I I really feel inspired by the vision that you know, you you're looking at these things happening, and I believe that we are happening there is a big change and transition in our EDA, I would like to ask you, Tom to share with us the vision that you have. So how would a world look like where you know, people do have this sense of oneness that they are part of a whole and that the other person is them is an expression with? So how would that look like?

Tom Cronin  30:47  
How long have we got? So let's just say we're in, in Sanskrit, it's called Set yoga and enlightened planet, where the age of wisdom prevails, and the awakening of each and every individual has happened. So humans are living and breathing as an enlightened being, not as an ignorant being, and what happens when humans are in that state from what I've gathered. And what I've seen is that they live and breathe quite differently to the norm of what is currently on the planet because we're in Kali Yuga, at the age of ignorance. And as we transition into this awakening on massive humanity, the the way we design our systems are going to change. So the moment we have pillars that hold up our societies, we've got a political pillar, we've got an education pillar, we've got a relationship pillar, we've got a pharmaceutical pillar, we've got a medical pillar, we've got sports pillar, we've got all these pillars that kind of uphold our society. And they're built and designed predominantly from a state of consciousness of individuals being very preoccupied about their own existence. And that's whether it's a political party, I need to win, my political party needs to win, or my business needs to win, or my sports team needs to win, or my banking, business needs to thrive and succeed. And usually, in that paradigm, it does come with some fairly significant consequences. And there's a big price to pay for a lot of the models that we currently have a lot of them are very outdated, because they've been 200 304 years old, some of them. And what we're going to find is that as we become more conscious, and hence more interconnected, we're going to need to start designing new systems and new education system needs to be crafted and created, and your medical system because at the moment, the medical system is built upon the idea that people are very uncertain in their health, they don't really understand how to have sovereign health. Sure, you know, you might get a broken leg because of a car crash, or a bike accident or something. But overall, most of the disease that's on the planet, most of it's actually preventable, if we have more conscious people knowing how to live and breathe in a much healthier, more conscious way, and take autonomy for their health. Most businesses really preoccupied with you know, their own individual pursuits and successes. In an enlightened planet, it's so vastly different, it will take so long to explain. But ultimately, what I will see what I would imagine, what we'll see is that and even the economic model will have to change because the economic model is built on on the process of extraction, what can I extract out of something and commoditize. So we don't value a tree, we value a four by two in the tree, we don't value the ocean, we value the whales in the ocean. And we don't value the bees, we value the honey that we can extract from the bees, we extract and come out of commoditize, extract and commoditize, extract and commoditize. Now that model is leading us to a cliff that we're about to walk off because of the unsustainability of that. And so we'll have to build a new model. And it's a very complex model, because the model actually will have to be something that values a completely different set of values, our society will have to change what is valuable to us. And that's something that what was valuable to me 25 to 27 years ago is different to what's valuable to me today. And so my value system has changed. And the only thing that's going to change the structure and the pillars of our society is when individuals change their value system, where we value different things. So the moment we we really value the acquisition of something, what we what we're in at the moment is outcome oriented fulfilment, where our fulfilment is derived, whether it's a politician, whether it's a business, whether it's a country, whether it's an individual, my my fulfilment is derived from an acquisition or an experience or an outcome. And so therefore, I need more acquisitions and I need more outcomes. my sports team needs to win I need Bitcoin to go up I need to get that country's oil I need to Have that religion wiped out, I need that person to get out of my life and this person into my life, I need this mortgage to be paid off. All of these are outcomes that we've got a deep code in our society that these need to happen before I can find fulfilment. But when we get an enlightened society, what's going to happen is we have people in finding an internal state of fulfilment, which immediately changes the need for the outcomes. And that's why some of the happiest, most blissful people I've ever met, lived in these little caves carved out of the side of the Ganges, and they have literally three possessions and bowl to collect water in a bowl to collect some food and, and then a rug that they lay on at night. It's quite phenomenal how minimal these people live yet how blissfully aware that they are and how happy they are. And so for us to get into that world that we just simply don't need those acquisitions for those outcomes, means we have to shift the states of consciousness of the people that are in the world. I don't know if I answer that question as a long way.

Agi Keramidas  35:56  
Yes, if it answers the question, in a short pay, of course, when you said How long do we have? It is something that I bet you would spend for you could speak for hours. But you answer the question. And the reason why I asked you in the first place was your vision. A vision like this, for many people can serve us, you know, a beacon of light something that they can. Many people are what I'm trying to say is that many people don't have the the same, let's say they haven't really paid much attention, or maybe they're not even able to envision that in those the way that that you did, but given haven't heard that from you. It is like I said, again, a beacon of light some inspiration there that I hope that might trigger a bit further thoughts. I remember reading somewhere, it says that these words that we dream about can happen, all we need to do is start thinking about it and imagining it, and then it will happen. So

Tom Cronin  37:12  
yeah, I just love to add to that, because Daniel shmack them Berger, who's in our film the portal, and if anyone hasn't seen it, yet, they can watch that for free. And that might be where we direct them at the end of this podcast to go and watch the film. And there's a book that comes with that. And Daniel shmack, Tim Berger, who I believe is one of the greatest minds on the planet at the moment. He is a futurist, which has this, he has this capacity. And there's a few people on the planet who are recognised and qualified futurists and he's one of them. And their job is really to really kick the can down the road a long way for humanity and look at what what is possible for us and help the Find a roadmap for us to go there. And he asked Jackie, the director and myself while we were making the film and interviewing him, if we could invite our audiences, he said, You have a big responsibility, because you're going to be in front of a lot of media, as a result of this film and book and the work that you do. And he said, what I would invite you to do is invite the audience's that listen to you to start to contemplate in their mind, what do they look like in an enlightened state? And what does the world look like, as an enlightened planet? And he said, and then what's going to happen is you're going to start to create a North Star because there's actually no political organisation. There's no body, there's no banking system that is currently mapping out what an enlightened planet looks like. And if we just thought exactly what you said, which is what Daniel invited us to do, is to invite people to start contemplating, how would I act if I was enlightened? And what would that look like in the world if we had 7 billion people in that state, that need to live and breathe in that state? Now I'm still on my way to enlightenment, it's a journey that is an ongoing process for me. So I just wanted to sort of have a little disclaimer that I haven't quite arrived there yet. And it's something that I'm humbly still in the process of unfolding. But when I say to my students, you know, we actually are already all enlightened, we already have lied, we already have divinity, we are already in the state of realisation, Self Realisation is just that. There's degrees to how much we've realised that and how much we've, you know, peel back the layers to experience that. But that's something for everyone is to start contemplating, what would it be like for them?

Agi Keramidas  39:24  
Beautiful? Absolutely. You just gave a very wonderful action that one can take as well and take time to practice that and think about how would they be behaving if they were in an enlightened state? Would you like to share something more to the listeners, us, you know, some action steps something that they can implement, and make a difference really relevant to what we were discussing about

Tom Cronin  40:00  
It's really, for me, one of the simplest of all things. And, you know, it's one thing to go off and start building schools for kids and water wells and growing trees and things like that all those sort of actions are really important that we contribute in some way, but point of form. But I think the simplest thing, the most important thing we can do is, is take out moments of stillness. In our day, when we say stillness, people say to me, I meditate or go for a run. It's like, No, you go for running, you listen to music on your headphones. You know, that's not really the excitation we need to. And there's nothing wrong with running, of course, nothing wrong with swimming, and all those other things. But we really want to and need to, and I think as a society, it's really important, particularly in the world that we're going into now with technology in our phones, is to have windows of time, in our day where we sit and withdraw from the sensors, we close our eyes and withdraw from the interaction and the dynamic play with the outside world and start to move, even if it's five or 10 minutes a day to start to embrace some stillness and inner stillness and silence.

Agi Keramidas  41:09  
That's great. And a, you know, unlike very much when the word moments of stillness comes in, because it can be literally a moment that will go a very long way. So thank you for that. I have two last quick questions to ask you to wrap this up. Before we before I do, please share again, the best way for people to connect with you and find out more than you mentioned the portal the field.

Tom Cronin  41:40  
Yeah, so firstly, they can find me on Instagram, that's where I'm probably most active, and they can send me a message. And I love to hear from people that are connecting with me through Instagram. So it's Tom Cronin, just one word to MC R O N I N. And then my website, which is also Tom cronin.com. And if they want to watch the film, they can go to enter the portal as an e n t er, and then the portal, and they can watch it for free with gifting this film to the world. Now, we've decided it's time to share this with humanity. And, you know, for a while, we were trying to find ways to recoup our funds from the cost of producing that film and pay back our investors. But it's been a very difficult journey and hoping somehow, some way some shape or form that that will happen. And that is wonderful people that have been supporting this project to get when you read it. But for now, we've decided that we will give that to the world and see what happens after that.

Agi Keramidas  42:33  
That's beautiful, very generous, and I will put all the links in the show notes. So atoma couple of quick questions I always ask my guests and the first one is What does personal development mean to you?

Tom Cronin  42:49  
I'm gonna have to split that into two responses. There's personal development which is me as an individual as a human and and personality and as less even call it an identity or ego. So that's for me to be learning on a mental level, constantly improving the nature of my mind, on a physical level, you know, constantly helping refine and optimise my physical state. So I do saunas and ice baths and yoga and meditation and going to the gym, all those things, and, you know, improving as much as I can my influence in the world. So that's all you know, my personal development. And then there's spiritual development, which is also part of my person is to deepen my connection, let's just call it with God or source or the divine and become more and more stabilised in that experience of that intelligence that loving force. That is, in essence me as well. That's also an extension of me.

Agi Keramidas  43:51  
Thank you, and a hypothetical question if you could go back in time and meet the 18 year old Tom, what's one piece of advice you would give him?

Tom Cronin  44:05  
As soon as you hear about Bitcoin, buy it at five cents Bitcoin and secondly, stop being such a dickhead.

Agi Keramidas  44:20  
I've actually, it's surprising to hear these. It's a great, thank you. And I want to thank you very much for this conversation and it's unexpected that 10 towards the end. I want to wish you from my heart the best with your mission and what you're doing to contribute to this change in consciousness. We are 18 I will leave it to you for your last parting words, Tom.

Tom Cronin  44:59  
We've got some very chatty I think times ahead. And the world is going through a very big and very significant transition, probably one of the most important transitions that it will have ever gone through a transition far bigger than the Industrial Revolution, the agricultural revolution, the digital revolution, we're going through a transition of shifting from ignorance to wisdom, from darkness to light. And with that, everything is going to change. And it's going to be confusing, it's going to be challenging, it's going to be times of sorrow, times of joy. And we came along for this journey for the ride. Just like when we're at a fun park, and we get on that queue, we buy our ticket to the roller coaster, and we scare the crap out of ourselves. And at the same time of getting scared shitless we also have immense levels of joy and glare at the same time, this really, really strange experience. And that's kind of what this life is all about. And so, hang on, and go for the ride and just keep coming back to love through all of those difficult times.

Agi Keramidas  46:16  
This was episode 336. And before I leave you for today, let me share one more time. Following the last few months that personal development mastery was Weekly. I'm excited to tell you that starting today we're going back to two episodes a week, a conversation each Monday and the shorter episode on Thursday, either a solo or a snippet of wisdom. I am looking forward to providing you with even more actionable insights and practical wisdom. And one final thing, make sure you grab this exclusive opportunity to get my first book for free before its official launch. My wish for you is in the book to find even that one new idea that you will implement into your life. Go to AGIKERAMIDAS.COM/88 for your free copy. Until next time, stand out don't fit in!