Tim Freke — philosopher, spiritual pioneer, and international bestselling author of 35 books — describes the single 'Technicolour' moment that launched a lifetime of inquiry. In this conversation, he frames bravery as the courage to follow your highest calling, shows how spiritual awakening is the shift from black-and-white to colour, and reveals why reflection and conscious choice open the door to a life that feels vividly alive.

"Life is mind-blowingly amazing."

"The universe is a process made of the past."

What we explore:

• Wisdom as the courage to do what's right — and how reflection builds it over a lifetime
• Spiritual awakening as seeing in colour, and simple practices for switching it back on
• The evolution of consciousness, and Tim's idea of a super-soul and collective intelligence
• Choice and agency: taming the instinctual self and creating your own journey
• Soul-to-soul connection as the most radical act a man can offer in a world trained in distraction.

Connect with Tim:

Podbook & Podcast: youtube.com/timfreke

Website & Events: timfreke.com

Substack: timfreke.substack.com

Instagram: @timfreke

Facebook: facebook.com/TimFreke

X: @timfreke

A little about Hamish

I spent 25 years building a life that looked successful from the outside, but within, it was the opposite. Everything was falling apart, and I was throwing fuel on that fire. The joy of life had fallen away. Late November 2018, I had to make a choice: live or die. I chose to live, and everything changed. I had to confront the pain I was carrying, look at the stories, and change. I built The Brave Man Project because there was nothing like this when I needed it.

Podcast website https://thebravemanproject.com/

Hamish's website https://hamishniven.com/

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@TheBraveManProject

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamishniven/

TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@hamish.niven

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hamishniven/

Personal Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hamishniven

I thought, imagine a world in which everyone sees in black and white.

That's what you see. And then one day you open your eyes and everything's in color.

And then it goes.

and you're back to black and white.

Yes.

I think the experience of spiritual awakening is something like that.

And it can be full technicolor or it can just be a little bit of color,

Mmm.

but you know what's happened. So for me,

a spiritual experience is any experience where you go,

hang on, there's more going on here than just my sociobiological existence.

Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of the Brave Man Project.

Today we're talking to Tim Freke and this is going to be

a really interesting conversation.

I've been looking forward to catch up with Tim.

He's got some really interesting ideas and philosophies on life.

So Tim, thank you so much for turning up today.

It's a great pleasure.

Let's dive in. This podcast is all about being brave.

So what do you consider is bravery?

That's a big question. So bravery,

being courageous, well it's not being foolhardy.

I think it's being wise. I think those can easily get confused.

I would say the courage that I aspire to would

be the courage to do what my deepest wisdom says is the right thing to do.

and whatever that is. So that the,

not counting the cost, I'm doing what my deepest intuitive wisdom says,

act in this way. But that needs the wisdom because otherwise it just turns into

means the wisdom.

a kind of rashness and I don't think it's that at all.

I like that. So where do find your wisdom?

Well, I would say, Hamish, that the whole of life is a journey

of trying to accumulate wisdom.

I think that's one way of describing what happens in a life.

Mm-hmm.

And I certainly feel, I hope, I'm wiser now in my 60s than I was when I was younger.

I spent a lot of time, now I'm older,

looking back over my life and feeling how foolish I've been.

But that's a sign, I hope, of having got a bit wiser.

I think through the struggles and trials and,

but not just, I think a great deal of wisdom can come just from reflection,

from actually looking at oneself,

I'm actually looking at oneself,

what are the, what I would call the pastivity,

how...

the way that the past has governed how I act in the present,

and how much of that pastivity is serving me,

how much of it isn't, how do I ideate,

meaning what are the ideas or categories with which I understand what life

one of the ideas or categories which I understand what is putting into my narrative.

is and put it into a narrative.

And is that the best

I can find? So a lot of wisdom comes through challenge

and through difficulty. There's no doubt about that.

That's my dad.

But I'm not someone who thinks you have to do that.

I think you can circumvent that.

And part of the wisdom is to know that you can circumvent

the problems by reflecting in advance,

by looking at, by the old injunction that was there over the oracle at Delphi.

Gnothi Seton in the Greek, know yourself.

It's like to have the wisdom to become wise,

Hmm.

to have the wisdom that you know that you're foolish and that therefore

to have the wisdom that you know.

you can look at yourself and try and preempt the errors before they happen

before they have it and it involves the understanding to act better.

and evolve the understanding to act better in the world.

That's so simple. I like that.

It's so simple. I my problem has always been putting out the fires or coming down

to binary choices before I get there.

How did you manage to stop and think,

I'm going to think before I fall or something like that?

Because I think most people will come to a

existential crisis or a point where they have two choices left.

You don't have one choice, you always have two,

but how did you manage to find how to circumvent falling down that hole,

that dark night of the soul or something like that?

~ Well, obviously I have faced lots of challenges.

~ I don't think I've had the dark night of the soul experience.

And that's probably, well, I have to be open to the possibilities.

I've just been lucky. But also perhaps some part of it was,

and maybe this is the being lucky,

that from a very early age...

I've been awake to the mystery of life.

And so my priority in that area,

I mean there's lots of areas in life,

in that area of my life, which has been a very important area to me,

has been what the hell is this we're in?

And what should I be doing with it?

So that I didn't need some dramatic thing to wake me up to that because

I was aware of that the whole way through.

So always that has been the priority.

always has been the reason because of that I've managed

And because of that, I have managed

somehow to create a life for myself in which I've been able to indulge that.

which I think is the most...

And I still am, you know, I'm what I do with my pod book,

I'm doing with the pipe. I'm going to discuss the point that we were doing.

which we'll probably discuss at some point and the work I'm doing where I

can give a lot of stuff away now is because I've created a life where

We're going to begin with the host of the pipe.

I can really focus in on this every day.

I can't really follow the signal this everyday.

So not everyone has that opportunity and not everyone makes that opportunity,

So, not everyone has that opportunity,

and not everyone makes that opportunity,

but it's worth it because

but it's worth it because

I think it's strapping that we have

I think it's also having the wisdom to stop.

to stop smoking. A few days ago,

So a few days ago,

I felt a bit like, why am I doing all of this?

I felt a bit by upon doing this smoking.

was a bit exhausted with

it all, bit of burnout with everything I'm doing.

And I've learned now that when I hear a voice go stop,

I stop. And so I have a whole day,

I do nothing. I'm purely introspection.

I don't eat even. It's just like,

stop.

And then I see a whole load of things which I need to see.

So I know to do that. And also when I was younger,

I think I did that early on, I had two periods of withdrawing from the world.

And like everything, Hamish, like it sounds,

you gain something, you lose something.

Because you can't do everything.

So while other young men were making their way in the world,

I was retreating into meditative retreat twice for long periods,

which meant I gained a whole load of stuff that they didn't have.

but I didn't have a whole lot of things which they had.

So I hadn't come into the world.

In some ways I was probably more spiritually mature than them,

but less mature in other ways.

And I've had to learn that.

you know, ~ life is so individual,

don't you think? some people,

Mm. Mm.

lot of my heroes woke up when they were 40.

Yep.

And they were in the world, they were professors and established people.

Richard Halbert, Ram Dass, was an influence for me.

He was at Harvard when he woke up.

I was 12. So I never came in and did all that.

I had to do all of that later.

So that idea of awakening up,

does that mean? So if someone's listened to this and they go,

well, I've heard this, people talk about awakening.

sounds very woo woo. It sounds very spiritual.

And ~ I guess what initiates that?

And then what's the driving force behind it?

Well, during my quiet day that I had a few days ago,

the analogy that was coming up for me,

which is just an analogy obviously,

but it might be worth sharing with you,

was this. I thought, imagine a world in which everyone sees in black and white.

That's what you see. And then one day you open your eyes

and everything's in color. And then it goes.

and you're back to black and white.

Yes.

I think the experience of spiritual awakening is something like that.

And it can be full technicolor or it can just be a little bit of color,

Mmm.

but you know what's happened. So for me,

a spiritual experience is any experience where you go,

hang on, there's more going on here than just my sociobiological existence.

Now I think our social,

and biological existence is really important.

I don't want to lessen the importance of that.

minute.

But what comes with the spiritual experience is that,

most people, lots of people anyway,

have had moments where they've gone,

there's more going on here, isn't there?

What is that? And when you get it vividly,

it's like everything comes into color.

And when you get it very vividly,

you

it's like technicolor. And then the whole thing becomes

the questions you're raising, like what the hell just happened?

How can I get back to it?

~ what creates it, all of those questions.

That's it.

So what happened to me when I was very young was that I had

a Technicolor version and set me off on this whole life I've led going,

asking all those questions and looking for the best answers.

But in terms of like what that means in terms of,

know, like, okay, so that's an analogy.

I think, and there's lots of different ways of experiencing this.

And most difficult way of experiencing this.

It's not like one thing, but commonalities would be,

It's not like a pantheon.

I think that you feel a profound sense of communion or connection or oneness

you feel like sense of communion or connection upon us.

Something you're not, you don't feel isolated.

so that you're not, you don't feel isolated from the rest of the universe.

feel like the of you, as you feel intimately,

You feel intimately part of it.

keyed a bit. That's beautiful.

And that's beautiful.

a heightened appreciation, often with the senses,

A lot of appreciation, often with the senses,

like the senses do literally come into

but the senses do literally.

color, they're more alive, but also in terms of meaning,

Yeah

~

when the difference between,

I'm just alive, know, to I'm alive,

wow, wow, you know, it's that,

wow, that movement from a kind of,

often I describe it like this,

because I like to do visual things,

I say, awakening's like this.

It's like that there, like that.

And then for me, the most important thing is the sense of being

profoundly connected to a greater intelligence.

into a race for intelligence.

And that feels like this enormous love.

That was what it was for me when I was a kid.

It's absolutely impossible to be

The first thing that hit me wasn't anything philosophical.

It was, oh, there's this huge,

That's fine.

huge love. Or that's what I felt was this huge love.

So the connection isn't just a dry,

Plus the connection isn't just a drive.

"Yes, I'm one with everything." ~

the beach.

And that's what the whole of all the esoteric traditions are about that teaching

us focus like this, try out this.

also, you know, there's loads of ways,

there's loads of ways. You can get there in a million ways.

Anyone that goes, I've got the way,

it's like, it's not true. Life is the way.

There's a million ways and everyone's different.

Yeah, everyone is different. I,

when I go for walks, I will consciously say,

right, I'm going to see beauty.

I'll start that again. When I go for walks,

No

I will often say I'm consciously going to see beauty and back to your Technicolor,

the leaves start glowing, the clouds become more visceral,

the birds sound louder. It's exactly as you described it.

It's really visceral and I can turn it on.

~

those not watching, I've got my eyes closed,

I'm imagining, I'm remembering the sound of the birds,

the colours, the textures, the trees,

everything just becomes, as you said,

black and white to colour, I go 2D to 3D,

it comes three dimensional. And I think that is a conscious choice to

do that kind of thing. I suppose that's the same as what you talked about

was your reflecting.

Yes, although I think that's closer to what I mean by Psi-Sensing.

So one of the ideas I've been exploring is that we don't just sense with the body,

we sense with the psyche or the soul.

So we're Psi-Sensing or soul-sensing,

you could call it, it doesn't matter.

Because you can't sense the oneness of everything.

You can't see it or hear it or touch it.

Likewise, know, this vast loving intelligence,

you can't sense it with the biological senses,

but you can sense it.

but you could sense it with the soul.

and smoke.

And what you were doing, I suggest,

with that walk, which is a lovely thing to do,

was consciously focusing that ability.

And then it turns up. One of the ideas that

Hmm.

has been central to me over this last period has been to go,

The US law spirit has been...

~ consciousness, what we mean by when we're conscious of something

is high definition processing,

You're

meaning...

We're taking in lots and lots and lots and lots,

taking in lots and and lots and of huge amounts of information.

huge amounts of information all the time.

I mean, I'm taking information for

the moment about how I'm sat on the chair.

I'm just not conscious of it, although I am now.

And I am now because I mentioned it and therefore my attention's gone to it.

Wherever I put my attention, I process that in high definition.

Yeah. Yeah.

~

But I'm taking in loads of information I don't,

and that's a very wise thing to do because it uses up a lot of bandwidth,

as it were.

to process in high definition.

But once you get that, then you can see that meditation or sight sensing

or any of these things is about focusing high definition attention.

So you're walking out and you're not taking in anything.

And then you go, hmm, let's just

take in the color of the sky. And then suddenly the color of the sky is,

Take the color of the sky. And there's only a color of the sky.

~ let's just take in the texture of the leaves and the rustle.

I'll just take in the texture of the leaves.

And then.

and you're shifting your relationship with it because you're now processing

it in high definition. And one of the big shifts for me when I was in

The pain shifts were made when I was in those periods of treatment,

one of those periods of retreat,

the second period of meditative retreat in my early 20s,

the same period of treatment just did for a tree by early twenties.

was I'd been taught ~ to meditate on

It a big difference to the day that I brought it up.

my breath as most people are. And when I started off,

I was probably one of the first people police group that I was probably going

I think it was a Buddhist group that I was probably got it from.

And my understanding of that Hamish was,

to get I understand the pain,

which

is because this is your pain.

This is so boring

that if you spend enough hours doing it,

you will become enlightened.

But then one day, something happened.

and I focused my attention and it became exquisite to breathe.

And by focusing that, suddenly,

wow, wow. And by the end of that period of my life,

Wow, I can't believe that people in my life,

felt, even if I'm incarcerated,

do you really even want to be cultivated?

I've got this. I can just pay attention to my breath and it's amazing just

Mm-hmm. You've got this. You can just pay it.

to do that. And.

And once you set up something like that,

whether it's walking and looking at the sky or it's your breath or something,

you have a place where you can break yourself out of this narrow kind

of black and white vision and back into color.

Thank

And that opens it up then in other ways.

you start to remember that life is mind-blowingly amazing.

the thing which is strangest is how easy it is to miss.

Isn't that the truth? And that is so sad.

We just go on nine till five, eight till six,

Netflix and chill, going to work,

coming back. Yeah. And just figure.

And the

irony is, you know, all of that is amazing.

All of that is just great. You just don't want to miss it.

And it's like, get that, you know,

because you, can get into a sort of spiritual little thing where it's like,

that's all, what you should really be doing is something more profound.

you

I don't think that anymore. I do like to do profound things.

I love it. But also I like to remember,

you know, when I sit of an evening having worked hard all day with my wife

and we watch

some nonsense or maybe it's good,

it doesn't matter, but it's just chilling out for an hour before bed.

I really want to remember, oh God,

look, we're both healthy, we're both alive,

we're here, we're doing this trivial,

beautiful little thing together.

And if I were not to have this,

God, I'd miss it. If I didn't have the magic of just sitting here with

the woman I love, having been with her all these...

years and just watch this thing and just chill and it's like or I could miss

all of that and we're just doing it but not not having that it's the same

as you and exactly the same as you and the walk it's the same thing isn't

Yeah.

how do you, do you consciously make an effort to step into that,

I'm not going to call it mindset,

into that thigh sensing. Is it like,

okay, I'm sat with my wife, we just had a lovely meal.

And then it's like flick a switch.

I mean, I guess it's automatic now,

but how did you...

start to get into that stage because I think that is spectacular.

think that is getting beyond the mundane,

appreciating there is magic in the mundane and things like that.

You're already shattering all my illusions of like,

don't like mundane, I don't like boring.

It's like, now I'm going to,

so thank you for that. Yeah.

How, well, I mean, I do forget,

but I think the.

Well, I took the day where I stopped.

I'm not saying other people should do that.

That's very much a Tim thing. That's one of the things I do.

But because things were getting a bit black and white,

and because I've been doing this really all my life for decades,

generally there's at least a little bit of color.

sometimes a lot,

Yeah.

but at least a little bit. And if that goes...

Yeah, I feel pretty bereft. And it's quite good for me though,

Yeah.

because it reminds me. And part of my motivation for what I do,

you know, I'm a philosopher, I think we need to change our worldview,

you know, I want to change culture,

know, play a little role in that.

But also, in a much more personal,

individual basis, I just like to do anything I can to help people see in color,

because life is precious and it's really hard.

Mm.

You know, and there's a,

it's, you know, even if you, you're the wisest person in the world,

it's pretty hard unless you go for the whole detached thing,

Yeah.

~

which doesn't attract track me at all.

That whole spiritual detachment.

I never get unhappy. I'm always like,

that seems like really, that just feels like you've just lost life.

And you know, life is, you know,

just to, just to love is to take the risk of suffering.

I think, you know, if you love someone,

you've thrown yourself wide open to suffering.

So just.

get on board with it, that's the price,

I'm paying it. It's

like, it's a deal. And so there's all of that.

Mm.

And so if you've got that, just

to remember that black and white life is hard.

Honestly, I feel like people who don't have some sense of what I call

the vast loving intelligence, whatever you want to call that,

that greater thing which holds you and supports you.

I don't know how they get through.

So I want to offer anything I can to people

like that, regardless of what philosophy you adopt,

to just get that sense,

to touch that love enough times that you can bring it in day to day.

And that's what I try and do. I just do my best.

rather, whenever I say that, I always think,

do you Tim? Do you do your best?

I don't think you do, you? But I do do my best to do my best.

To do my best would be a huge achievement.

Maybe one day occasionally I do my best.

The rest of the time I just do my best to do my best.

That's good enough isn't it? I some days getting out of bed is a heroic achievement.

Yeah. And it sounds like last week was getting back into bed

Yeah.

was the heroic achievement. Just saying stop enough.

Yeah, that's bold, that's brave.

the intuition is an interesting thing because

what I mean by it is it's your most emergent or most evolved level of processing.

So there's two things for me. One is it's not absolute and it's often wrong because

Yeah.

~

it's only my best wisdom and I'm limited,

but it's the best I've got. So it's no good just thinking if I just follow that,

everything will be perfect. That's not true.

I found that out. I followed it all my life.

It hasn't always been

perfect. That's just the way it is.

But it's the best I've got. So if the voice,

if I'm following that wisdom, then do it reflectively,

be critical, change your mind if you need to.

Mm-hmm.

it is trying to alert you to where you,

from the two-way dismay to where we're

or it is me, to where I'm losing the thread.

the

I'd like to step back towards ~ what you said,

this divine love, this incredible being.

Do you think humans are spiritual?

I think there's a spiritual, it's difficult word,

spiritual, because it's often associated with lot of nonsense.

And I'm so critical of religion,

spirituality, the way it is right now,

because I've been around it all my life.

you know, I'm probably more critical than most.

But I would say that what the best of spirituality addresses

is a level of reality. I'm convinced of that.

question is what is it and what's its relationship with the other levels

of reality and the traditional idea is that it's a supernatural level from which

Mm-hmm.

we have fallen in some way so you really belong somewhere else

you really will not be able to give full extent.

and you've fallen into this dense illusion and you need to get free

or you're a spark of God become trapped in matter and that's often

the traditional picture and I think

What I'm trying to do is go, look,

that level of reality, that's for real.

If you explore it, you will find that.

But that understanding, we need to turn spirituality the right way up.

Mm-hmm.

It's just the wrong way up. And we haven't fallen from something supernatural.

Mm-hmm.

It's the most emergent level of the natural.

So that the evolving universe has come through matter and life and psyche,

mind.

Mm-hmm.

And that level is not just a by-product of biology.

It's a whole domain, just like spirituality is always said.

And if you explore it with spiritual practices

or psychedelics or whatever way you do it,

you will find it's a very profound level of reality.

In fact, I think it's the most emergent level of 14 billion years

you

of evolution and that we can come to understand in that way.

Mm-hmm.

I like that. I I've listened to you before and you've said that

the universe started off as matter.

And then over the 14 billion years,

we've got Hamish and Tim having a conversation together using technology and stuff.

So as life has evolved,

you're saying the universe has evolved,

consciousness has evolved or consciousness is another step in that evolution.

I mean, what's next? Exactly. So,

Exactly. you know, it looks

you know...

like, well, we don't want to get into this in this conversation,

I don't think, but just to give it some context,

I think the first thing we need to see is the foundation is actually what

we study with mathematics, information,

Mm-hmm.

which is why physics is so mathematical.

And then from that has come a pre spatial level,

which we study with quantum physics.

And then you've got physics, which is the material universe.

And that's extraordinary. And then here,

at least on this little blue planet,

life.

And for four billion years, life has been going and evolving from

Thank

one cell into everything. And then from that,

we've got conscious life, the ability to focus in high definition

and experience it like this. The psyche,

this realm we're experiencing now with images,

isn't within the, it isn't within the biological space at all.

It's somewhere else. And that's the spirit realm for spirituality.

That's the soul. The psyche is the Greek word.

for soul, they mean the same thing.

Soul is from a Germanic root, mind also.

.

They're all essentially referring to this other level,

which you're in the whole time.

So when people go, do you believe in the soul?

It's like, of course, you're experiencing it now.

You understand the meaning of the word soul in your soul.

It's your psyche, that's what it is.

So we've arrived there, but I don't...

I don't, and that I think has evolved very fast.

It's evolving all the time. know,

biology takes, it speeds up. Physics took a long time to evolve.

and

Yep.

Biology is evolving much quicker.

And then psyche is evolving. Well,

it's evolving literally now in this conversation.

It's like, that's how fast it's evolving.

And then my, the thing that I'm exploring,

I'm, that increasingly makes sense to me,

let me say it like that, is that there's another level.

And that this experience of a vast loving intelligence,

Yes. Yes.

which people have been having for some time,

~

and which I stumbled into when I was young and have been exploring ever since,

the assumption has always been,

~ that must be the source of the universe.

But increasingly,

I am thinking that it is not the source of the universe,

that actually it's what the universe is flowering into.

and that it is the leading

edge of evolution and that we are contributing to its emergence.

again, it's like turning it the right way up.

It's not, we haven't fallen from this thing,

we're growing into this thing that we experience in these deep spiritual states.

So we're helping God grow to keep it really crazy language.

Yeah, yeah, well

what I'm really suggesting is that what is in the past being called God,

which comes with a lot of bad news,

isn't just a supernatural mind that just exists outside of it all,

Yeah.

inexplicably. It's actually the most emergent level of intelligence system.

So one of the ways you could see the whole evolution of everything

is the evolution of all these different intelligence systems.

The intelligence of the plant behind me,

of the atoms that making up the air,

and then you and me and...

And that hasn't stopped. And what

I'm suggesting is in the same

way that individual cells came

together to form multicellular organisms like me and you on the biological level,

Thank you.

in the same way individual psyches,

individual Mm-hmm.

individual souls are coming together to form a super-soul.

~

a super system and that that super system is that super intelligence

and that when we come into these deep mystical states of what I call deep awake,

when we're, we do this, we see in color,

vividly in color, we come into oneness with the universe,

we begin to integrate our soul into a super soul and

that's what we experience and that's why it's so absolutely amazing.

That's what's absolutely amazing.

It's so beautiful, it's so much love,

It's so beautiful. It's so much love.

it's so wise because we get to touch something much bigger than us and

It's so quiet. We get to touch something much bigger than us.

be part of it.

And that's what I think the great mystics have been exploring for a little while.

It's just that we need to revise our understanding because they didn't have

the idea of an evolving universe.

They had no idea. We now know that the universe has evolved.

They had no idea about that. So they had,

saw it in a different way. So you capture the essence of their wisdom,

but now turn it the right way up.

I like that tremendously because I mentioned to you earlier,

I'm studying shamanism and I find it absolutely beautiful.

And there's an aspect of shamanism,

which is all about soul retrieval,

which is a ~ piece of one's inner child,

an aspect of you that has been

lost for whatever reason, call it trauma,

doesn't really matter at this stage.

~ But I was working with somebody the other day,

or they were working with me, and he's not a shaman in the traditional sense.

He's a therapist, he does energy psychology.

And wow, there was Hamish happily buggered off over there doing his own thing,

and we brought him back. ~ He's a shaman in his own,

but he's a 21st century shaman.

So

Shamanism has evolved, religion,

spirituality is evolving. All of these things are growing.

I suppose it's an egg and a chicken,

isn't it? Are we doing it? Is it doing it to us?

Or is it just like an ~ avalanche,

a ball rolling down, a snowball rolling down?

Well, it has a momentum for sure,

but the key thing about the evolution of psyche is that it comes with choice.

And that speeds things up immensely because we can,

Mm-hmm.

know, most of evolution has happened unconsciously with no choice.

So it takes a while and it's random

or at least it's gonna try out a whole load of dead ends.

Whereas we get to try out dead ends

in our imagination before we actually implement anything.

we can reflect, we can change much quicker.

The power of our choice is that's the creativity of the universe now conscious.

And we have that. So that seems really,

really, really important and valuable.

I think that's staggering because I mean I'm just thinking back you know this little

cell did that thought it died because of this and this one and it

was purely random and as you're saying I'm now going if I do that that's

the answer that's that's a consequence or that's a consequence so I'm

not going to do that so I'm literally dividing these cells

and then choosing choosing a pathway so that's

Yes. Yes.

That is incredibly powerful. It's also scary because I can choose to

go down a rabbit hole. I can choose to become a monster.

~ as certain people have done throughout history.

But it's also tremendously exciting because I suppose we're creating

our own journey, aren't we? We're making our choices to live how and who

we want to be. Yes.

Yes, I think

so. And obviously it's not 100%.

You know, you're into, you are,

I would say this, Tim is a relationship with the universe.

And so is Hamish. Tim isn't some independent thing that just exists somehow.

No, I've arisen from the universe and I live always in relationship with it.

So that's what it is. I'm a relationship.

So is it, I don't create myself?

but I have a role as well. It's like in our conversation now,

it's both of us. And the same with the relationship with the universe,

it's both of us. So that interplay,

I get to play a role. How well I play that role,

that's my wisdom. And not only can I try out things,

Okay.

but also I can learn. And by consciously learning,

by going, ooh, that was a mistake,

or looking back and going, I regret that,

or that worked really well.

or I'm really pleased I did that.

All those things we do, we are speeding up the evolution of the universe whenever

we do that.

I was just putting all those words in together to make sense.

I like that. So it is, you're saying it's incredibly important to be reflective.

It's incredibly important to make choices.

~ And I suppose within there, you've got gratitude and compassion

for what you've achieved at the end of the day or the end of the week.

Absolutely, but don't get me wrong,

I do think it's hard. I mean, I think it's a hard thing to do.

And this is the deep essence of what the spiritual message has been really

in different forms all along. It's been like,

you you need to... There's a fascinating line in the Christian tradition,

you

which is an interesting tradition,

which I was thinking about just the other day was...

where this figure of Jesus says,

the way it's translated is, the meek will inherit the earth.

And it all sounds a bit like, should be all very meek and so on.

But actually, the word that's used there,

the translation is written in the Greek and then translated into Latin.

And the word in the Latin makes it really clear because the word is best translated,

I think, as tamed. The self-tamed will inherit the earth.

Okay.

And I

think what the whole thing is about,

also in the East, where you get the ideas,

for example, in Zen of the 10 bulls,

where the aim is that the initiate tames the bull.

In fact, you find this everywhere.

So that spirituality is about taming your instinctual nature,

which is really your unconscious nature.

So the challenge is, can you tame yourself?

And then as you grow, you tame yourself on another level,

which means that you're not just reacting.

Yeah. Yeah.

you're able to be reflective. And that doesn't mean reflect all the time,

~

you just notice when you need to.

And you're willing to do that.

So that you're becoming more and more,

there's a strength in it. It's not meek like,

it's like it's a really powerful,

~ I've

tamed myself as best as I can.

It's a different thing.

Yeah,

it is a different beast. It's it's a really compelling beast to be to be wise

and to be discerning and to make back to choices keeps on coming back

to choices doesn't

it conscious choices ~

And it's a strong thing, you know,

it's like a, and that's where it means important to the conversation about men,

I think, is to go,

this is really about developing a spiritual strength,

which you get from knowing yourself.

But the thing I wanted to add,

I don't know if this is a bit of a detour,

because it's a bit philosophical,

but I want to say more than that,

really, Hamish. want, because I have a...

a take on identity and on time.

Those are two big things to do in a few minutes,

Hmm.

but I'll have a go. The overall ontology,

the study of what exists that I'm suggesting,

is that ~ time doesn't pass.

It's information that accumulates.

So in this moment now, everything that's happened before is implicit.

Otherwise it wouldn't be this moment.

and this moment leads to the next and to the next.

And so the past hasn't gone anywhere,

disappeared. It's actually, and this is partly what you're exploring,

I think, with your personal relationship with the shaman.

It's like, it's all there. So it's all there.

Mm. Mm.

And the past is forming this. And so when you get that,

you go, right, of course, because the universe is a process.

So it's made of the past. That means I'm a process.

So.

What is my identity? Well, my identity then is my past.

My identity, what I am, is this unfolding process made of all

of my relationships with the universe all the way back.

Hmm. Mm-hmm.

So you're meeting everything that Tim's ever been,

all those relationships. And then you get something really deep,

I think, which is with your choices,

you are creating yourself, not just because you are your life.

That's what you are.

And that's your identity.

I think that's what you take with you forward into the future.

I think it's what you take with you after death.

It's everything

you've ever been. Nothing's ever lost at all.

You're not trapped by it. You can keep it evolving.

No.

It's not a burden, but it is what you are.

you

And the wisdom is when you turn,

~

it's like the alchemy, when you take the lead and turn it into gold,

you find the thing that's been weighing you down and you turn it into wisdom.

And that's what we're doing. We're doing it all the time.

I'm seeing a pyramid. are. There's there's Hamish day one,

year two, year five, year 12, building that pyramid and every little bit,

every experience is a rock I put underneath my feet to build me who I am.

And yeah, there's been some there's been some dodgy building here

Yeah.

and there and there's some bits where there's there's one or two

big holes down there. But. And I suppose you're saying I don't have

to identify as those.

They're just a part of me.

Yeah, and

also, for a little bit that I know about what you've said about your journey,

Hamish, you may agree with this,

is that where you have allowed the difficult experience to make

you wise in some way, then it's a treasure now.

It doesn't make it any better.

Yeah, totally. No.

You wouldn't do it again. But...

You redeemed it. You found something of real value in it.

Hmm.

And so it's part of you. And in some ways it's a really valuable part

Yeah.

of you now because it's the thing which led to the greater,

greater, pastivity, more wisdom.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's put me on this path of creating this podcast

of creating everything around it because,

you know, I'm, I'm holding up a mirror,

you know, you are a part of me.

I'm a part of you, as you already said,

I'm sharing your story, your experience,

joy and wisdom and enthusiasm that is just bowling me over for other people just

to see, you know, I want a bit of that.

How did Tim find it? And, you know,

a bit of Hamish, you know, he's overcome

that, that, that, and these things.

How did he do it? Why did he do it?

Because, yes, that is not passivity,

passivity. What's the phrase you use?

I spell it past-ivity. It's kind of like I wanted to find a word,

I couldn't find one. So I wanted it to sound a bit like gravity.

So it's a bit like it's something which is holding everything together.

Mm. ~

And in a way, it's like the algorithms that run everything because it's

Mm-hmm.

the patterns from the past that repeat but in a creative way.

And so I want to go look, the past is...

the fabric of the universe. We know the universe is expanding as space,

but I think it's expanding as time,

and everything that's formed already informs what is now forming.

So here we are in the moment where it's brand new,

It's

but it's informed by everything that's formed.

So for us, that's the way our body works,

but it's also the ideas we have,

the conversation we've just had,

that leads to the next moment,

the next moment, the plant's doing its plant thing.

It's the nature of what exists.

Yeah, I need to sit down after this conversation,

reflect on this a little bit. Yeah.

you

So while we're sitting in that kind of spiritual realm and the physical realm,

the body, is this a vehicle?

Is this me? Am I a soul inside of this body?

What do you?

what do you presume that we are?

Well, one of the big shifts for me that's happened over the years is I want

to go look.

I'm a psycho-biological system.

I'm one system. I function on these two levels,

the biological level and the level of the psyche.

I'm doing it now. And I'm not something else.

There's a great tendency of spirituality to come along and go,

hey, Hamish, you're not really Hamish.

You're really this other thing.

You're either this other soul thing that you've forgotten,

or you're really God and you've forgotten,

or you're really just the presence of consciousness.

and the idea that you're Hamish is just an illusion.

Stop thinking you're Hamish. I hate all of that now.

I go, no, you're Hamish,

how fantastic. This is Hamish meets Tim.

So the potentiality to become everything has become the universe

and in that process, it's turned into Tim.

And it's not there's something in the background that's looking through me

and

as if I'm some sort of tunnel.

No, the beingness of everything has been,

is.

Tim, it's arisen as Tim and that's what I am right now.

Mm-hmm.

However, I do think that

the process of evolutionary emergence has led to the point where

the system has learned that the psyche bit can continue to function without

the biological bit. so that the thing you're in right now,

the psyche,

You know, most of us know that if you cut down your senses,

we do it in meditation, we do it in sleep when you dream,

you can do it with all sorts of different practices,

then the other world becomes more more vivid.

And what it looks like happens to me is that when the body dies,

that other world becomes super vivid.

And that's what we have an enormous number of people now telling us happens when

Thank

we die from near-death experiences.

And what's so interesting about them is how they're very similar.

They're not like just random crazy dreams.

know, if you and I sat down and went,

what was your dream? Well, I dreamt,

really I dreamt this man shit.

It'll like, yeah, it would be like,

yeah, it's a dream. But this is not like that.

These are people very clear, very vivid,

very similar experiences or comparable experiences.

So my hypothesis is that the system has learned to be able to continue.

So what you are is your past.

What continues is you, all of you.

Everything you've ever been continues,

but now it's functioning in this new way,

or it's focused on this level.

It doesn't have a biological level.

And one other thought maybe to add to that for folks who might be listening

Mm.

to this thinking, really? That doesn't sound,

know, is When you look at the evolutionary process and you go,

look, the whole thing started as hydrogen,

even before that, was plasma.

and it has literally become YOU

Thank

No.

Hmm.

It's like, well, you, this whole thing is blowing your mind.

So the idea that a psycho-biological system can learn to function on the biological,

Okay.

the psyche level without the biology,

doesn't, really doesn't seem that outrageous,

given everything else that's happened.

And it would explain these huge numbers of people reporting,

that's exactly what happens.

I'm just, I'm just looking at the single cell.

As you said, it's coming together and there's two of them,

there's four of them and then you've got the fish and then you've

got the primate who has learned and teaches somebody else,

Yeah. Yeah.

another primate to use a tool.

And then communication and then writing and then,

you know, I'm aware that's my finger that hurt,

you know, if I poke you, that hurts you.

that scale of evolving is...

Is incredibly beautiful, I mean it is overpowering.

So you can see why there's a God who has done all of this right back from

the beginning of time. ~ Or,

and I like your way, that it feeding itself,

it's putting a brick in front of itself to step on.

The shift for me, Hamish, came from going,

hang on, this starts in the simplest of ways and becomes ever more complex.

Hmm.

So why am I putting this incredibly complex thing,

some divine intelligence, because to make any sense of it being a source,

it needs to be some sort of intelligence.

Why am I putting that at beginning?

It's just there when what actually seems to be there is very simple.

So I'm much more attracted to

Thanks

like the Taoist tradition, where what's there is the Tao,

which is empty, as yin and yang,

Hmm.

relationship. It's very simple,

the one is two. Incredibly simple,

no big minds. And that rather than this being intelligently designed,

that this is the evolution of intelligence.

That that's what's been happening for 14 billion years.

And that it's now reached the level

Thank

where we are, is it intelligent

in the way that we are to have this?

It's just amazing, isn't it? It's like that hydrogen or the plasma,

We've got

if you like, that has become you and me having a conversation about

the nature of the universe. I mean,

Mm-hmm.

that is endlessly mind blowing on the internet.

mean, just what?

And we're doing it by passing funny sounds to each other,

Yeah.

which somehow convey ideas. And we just take all that for granted.

So that's a level of intelligence.

Well, maybe

there's another intelligence which is bringing together all of those intelligences.

a bit like, well, look at the internet.

You've got a lot of different computer systems,

Hmm.

you plug them all in together,

you get a supercomputer system.

Yep.

And I think the same with the soul.

You get a lot of souls, you plug them all in together,

you get a super intelligence. And I think that's what's happening.

And then the thing which I really find...

beautiful about this vision is it then goes,

Check your hips.

if you can get the thing about identity,

that you are your life, and you can get the thing that you can plug into this higher

intelligence, then you can contribute your life to the evolution of God.

Mm.

That's what you bring to it.

Yeah. ~

which is, like, you want meaning?

As bucket loads of meaning. Doesn't

diminish all the everyday things,

Yeah.

the watching Netflix, the beautiful bring up a family,

~

it just says all of that is part of what you bring to God.

All of it, because it's all what you are.

And the wiser you are, the more wisdom you can bring to

It works. It's elegant. It doesn't involve ambiguity or giving your power,

your agency away. It's, it's very sovereign,

isn't it? It's very, and I think,

yet very sovereign.

I think that is so important because we,

we give our power away so easily just because of it's easier,

takes less effort and all sorts of things.

I mean, I want to be encouraged and I want to encourage others to really have that

and

level of reflective autonomy that you can create your life,

that create yourself. that's the waking up,

the seeing in colors. And just to see that you're doing that every

Thank you.

day and how meaningful life is.

Mm-hmm.

Even in, you whether it's going for a walk like you described or watching Netflix,

it's like even in those moments,

it's not just, it doesn't have to be just in the moments where you're having some

profound spiritual experience,

spiritual spirit.

although that's lovely, amazing,

but just it's always there actually,

Church. ~

because you're shaping who you are.

And the wisdom then becomes knowing today's the day to do this or a day day to day,

I just need to relax. And you know.

Mm.

It doesn't mean I'm not meditating enough or,

yeah, that's one option. Just do what's right for you.

And that is the sovereignness as well,

isn't it? Not do what the guru tells you,

Mm. Mm.

not do it. What is right for you?

You find it. You know,

are you going to go, I want to go and study shamanism and,

you know, take ayahuasca, or are you going to go,

I want to go for a deep walk or read poetry?

or listen to music or dance or meditate or...

Who knows what your thing will be?

making choices, as you said, you're being sovereign,

you're making choices and you're

you're choosing a direction that you really want and that does require effort though

doesn't it? is a conscious decision and I suppose it is out

of character with society and expectation and it is being brave to be honest.

It really is taking that effort to change your life to make

a difference for yourself.

Yep, yep. Well, I think sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's hard.

yeah.

That's like that with life generally,

isn't it? And I think it's like that with this.

Some days it just happens, you just feel like it's the easiest thing in the world.

existing.

And then other days, like, you know.

It's a chore.

yeah, you have to, have to, but like,

but it's worth it. It's worth it.

you,

And you do those things, well I do those things when I do because

I know how valuable they are.

And that's partly why it feels like we need each other.

Because you can run out of that,

Mm-hmm.

you know, it's bit like you can run out of physical energy,

biological energy, where you feel like exhausted and then you know you have

to sleep or eat. I think in the level of the psyche,

you can run out of psychic energy and you become depleted and low and

you don't have that enthusiasm,

you don't have that love of life.

And some of these techniques and techniques,

I don't like that word really,

but some of these activities.

Yep.

can generate that.

well, listen, go for a walk. You're in relationship now with the blue sky.

That will generate energy. You can listen to music that you love.

Mm-hmm. Mm.

That will generate energy. Art generates lots of energy,

Mm. Yeah. Mm.

but also conversation like this generates a lot of energy and really does.

Yeah. Mm.

Doesn't it? Yeah. Mm. Mm. Mm.

Yeah. So friendship and the ability to share,

that's the way we can keep invigorating each other by coming into these more

emergent relationships.

which allow us to keep the energy up enough.

Hmm.

So you can be courageous.

Yeah, that brings us really nicely on to your pod book,

because I know you, you have a community where you you support people

and things like that. But explain to me what your pod book is,

or certainly to the listeners,

because I think this is this is something quite exciting.

Yeah, so I've written a lot of books,

35 I think it is, and I wanted to do something a bit different.

And my last book was a big shift,

which was Soul Story. And then for the last eight years since Soul Story,

I've been really focusing on developing the philosophy in that.

And it's a deep philosophy book,

this one. And I've presented it as a series of videos.

So it's like the love child between a book and a pod cut.

podcast. So it's me presenting chapter by chapter,

Thank

get this, now next chapter, get this,

just like you would in a book.

But it's me speaking spontaneously.

So you really get to connect with me rather than the printed word.

I'm really, really pleased with it.

Mm-hmm.

It's completed now and it's free and it's sitting there available as audio from

a podcast provider or on YouTube.

It's called Why Your Life Really Matters because I wanted to get a sense that this

isn't just abstract philosophy.

This is about

This affects like we've been discussing today,

it affects your life. And so that was really important to do that.

I think there's far much more I want to say.

So I'm now launching a ~ series of podcasts,

Me Talking, called the Univigil podcast.

Thank

~ And I'm gonna do a series called Univigil's Meditations so that people

can try out how to explore these ideas experientially.

And like you said, I gather people together,

Thank you.

lovely people all over the world,

small group, intimate explorers in the international community of Univigils.

Maybe you should say what a Univigil is.

So a Univigil, another word I made up,

Yes, please. ~

I'm a terror for making up words because I can't find the word I'm looking for.

So the idea of a Univigil is it's an alternative to the traditional ideas that were

the spiritual aim is to be an enlightened master.

or a kind of a saint figure. And my feeling is that was great.

I hugely admire those people who went down that road in the past,

you

but now I think we need to turn it on its head and go,

this isn't about getting away from the individual.

It's taking the individual to the next level.

So the univigil is an individual that

is becoming conscious of unity with the universe.

Hmm.

So you're entering these deep mystical states.

as an individual and your individuality I think actually profoundly increases

so that whole forming yourself

on a new level and that's what I'm interested in in the philosophy

and the practices supporting. So I have a group we meet online every week

on a Sunday and I talk philosophy and we do practices and we hang

Two,

out to ~ support each other.

Thank

you.

and

to develop the ideas, take them into the world.

And everyone's very welcome to come and try it out and see what they think.

It's a great way of interacting personally.

Well, I will be there on Sunday.

We'll definitely put the information in the in the show notes.

Completely lost my train of thought.

that's right. Yeah. Sorry about that.

This happens from time to time.

My brain is so much faster than my tongue.

Of course, me too.

I really like your idea of the individual.

I've been having some fascinating conversation with some friends recently around

need. And I think to thrive, we need people,

not that need, I need you to rescue me.

I need you to support me. need,

you know, it's that communion.

It's that being together, your group,

for example, being one of many,

but that need inherent in being a physical human being

to thrive.

Certainly to get through that mundane and see the beauty,

to see the magic.

couldn't agree with you more, Hevesh.

So one of the things that I do online,

but also in my in-person experiential events,

we run these weekends usually,

often in Glastonbury, where I live,

called Soul to Soul Experiences.

And what I focus on there is how much we

can transform each other through connection.

And so...

just by, you like now, know, there's your,

I see pixels on the screen, but it's you.

And if I go, well, I can't, I mean,

Hmm.

even if you were in the room, I wouldn't see your psyche,

but I'm sure as hell connecting with it.

And if you have that experience of connecting soul to soul or psyche to psyche,

the source from this.

it's profoundly transformative.

And so I think it turns out that the greatest way of waking up,

coming into color,

is through connection with each other.

It's hugely powerful.

And no surprise that we love it so much.

One of the greatest experiences for most people at some point in their life

is falling in love with another human being or having children

or having good friendships. These are massively important.

You led me straight into these communities,

these things that you run in ~ near your home.

Tell me a bit more about them.

How do they work? Because I'm also going to come along to one of those this year.

Great, well I'm so pleased to hear that.

Yes, so we gather together on a Friday night through to a Sunday afternoon,

Hmm.

midday. And they're primarily experiential,

but they're obviously informed by all of the philosophy that I've been sharing.

And we do numbers of ways of connecting,

primarily, also meditation, ~ to shift

our state and bring us into a state of communion.

And what that leads to, there's a beautiful film,

we've just released it on YouTube.

It's called ~ The Soul to Soul Experience.

And it's a film of one of our circles where we connect with people.

imagine this is just one of the ways,

but it's a very deep way that we use.

So I'm connecting with you now and we sit here with each other and I focus.

Now I'm focusing on your psyche that I can't see,

but...

I'm focusing on your eyes, but it's leading me to your psyche.

Mm-hmm.

When I focus on it, it starts coming into high definition.

Now it starts becoming vivid. If I just remain quiet and really focus on it,

it becomes very vivid. And there can become a moment where suddenly there's

one of us. It's like there's two of us,

but there's also we've communed.

And that is immense. Imagine I do that with you for...

Mm-hmm.

two, three minutes, and then I move on to the next person and go,

now I'm do it with you. And I do that again,

and oh, and then I move on, I do it with another person.

And you get to do that with everyone who's at the event.

And by the end of that, you're in the soul to soul communion.

Yeah

You've plugged in to this bigger thing.

And the love and the sense of the color is vivid,

really vivid.

So that's the sort of thing which we do.

if you want to see the film, it's worth having a look.

It can look a bit like, that looks a bit intimidating,

meeting all those people. But actually,

it's the safest thing you've ever done.

It's so weird because you start off

thinking, what's it going to be like?

And then within about a few minutes,

Thanks.

you kind of go.

yeah, this is really nice isn't it?

And everyone's doing that. And everyone's doing that.

Mm-hmm.

And then the thing which happens,

which is gorgeous, is that suddenly you're looking at someone who you

may have only met like the day before and you're going,

Hmm.

wow, God, this person is so beautiful.

Cheers.

Wow. And then you realise at some point everyone's looking at you going,

I am so here you go.

wow, this person's so beautiful.

And because it's like you're walking out into nature.

You look in that way and suddenly it's like,

how did I miss? How, you know,

I remember my mum who was, she's dead now,

you

but God, she was a gorgeous woman.

And she came along to one of these events to see what I was up to at one point.

And her comment at the end will always stay with me.

She just said, hmm. She said, well,

She just said it.

I arrived, this room was full of weirdos,

Thanks

but now it's full of angels. How did that happen?

And it's like, yeah, it's like,

Wow.

yeah, you just, you see each other.

That's why I call my group the ICU.

It's, you know, it's the International Community of Individuals,

Yeah that

but it's also ICU. And when you do,

it's exactly what you said about going out for a walk,

is that. And suddenly the whole thing is just spectacular.

So we're doing one of those in May,

and we're doing one of those, I think it's October,

in Glastonbury.

You can find out about all of this stuff on my website,

timfreak.com. And as long as you spell freak right,

because it's a weird old name,

but as long as you spell it F-R-E-K-E,

you'll find me.

No, super. I think, well, I'll be there,

definitely. But I think you've nailed probably one of the most important things

Fantastic.

there is seeing each other. When somebody gets

seen and heard, their capacity to change is just vast,

isn't it? They're seen, they're heard,

they're experienced, they're acknowledged.

And that changes people.

And you know, think of kids. The biggest thing they want is your attention.

Because your attention is it. That's the most valuable thing you have.

That's not so

You give them that. And we're like that too.

And it can be done in a really healthy way.

Meh.

And one of the things I love about what I'm playing with with attention,

because you can do it with listening,

we do it with listening as well,

with eyes closed for instance.

down.

It's not just about looking. But,

and other things.

We're doing it all the time. So with this technique,

it's not like, well, you know,

remember your mantra. Well, nothing against that,

but you know, it's simpler. It just goes,

Thanks.

you know, you're looking at people all day.

Try and practice seeing them. You know,

Yeah.

you're listening to people all day.

Try and practice actually hearing them by which you go,

Hmm.

I'm connecting with another psyche right now.

~ wow. And my overwhelming experience is that when you do that,

people, even if it's just the person at the local shop,

for a second,

you'd both know. Not always, but often you do.

And it's special. And a little ripple of goodness goes out into the world

What a place to finish a fabulous conversation.

Wow, Tim. ~ Yes, I'm going to listen to this back because there's several things

I want to pick up on, but that was fabulous.

Thank you.

A real delight, I've loved connecting with you Hamish and it's been a lovely time.

I think so too. I wanted to ask you what you think bravery is,

but I don't think that's even relevant because we're not about that.

This isn't about being brave. This is about,

maybe we are, maybe being brave is making informed decisions,

daring to do that. So yeah, so.

Yeah, think bravery, courage,

I think it is important. I think you're on to something of real value because it's

Mm.

the...

It's kind of like there's so many ways of approaching it,

but it's also like the courage to shake yourself out of the familiar

and be creative and to take the risk of being you in the world in

the most emergent way you can.

And I think it's worth it. mean,

Thank

if you asked about my pod book,

this is kind of maybe a, you know,

I had to come out when I did my pod book and go,

you know, those 35 books, 34 of them had a central idea that I now think is wrong.

And I knew that that would catapult my career as an author down the pan.

Mm-hmm.

And it did.

But I'm so pleased I did because what it led on my journey has been amazing,

Mm-hmm.

absolutely fabulous. And what I've got now is so much better than what

I had and wouldn't have come unless I'd gone,

I have to take that risk, I have to.

so having, you have to take the risk to follow your highest calling,

Mm hmm.

that's courage,

isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, it really is. Thank you,

Tim. Thank you ever so much. This has been fabulous.

a really amazing conversation and one I think we're gonna have lots

of fun sharing with people.