Steve Briggs recounts his experiences with Himalayan yogis.

photo by: Skeptiko

[Clip 00:00:00 – 00:00:18] 

[00:00:18] That’s Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove struggling with whether to do the right thing. It’s a topic we talk about with today’s guest, Himalayan Yogi expert Steve Briggs.  

Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:32] Steve, I think you’re down with this, but our culture, we’ve lost that. I mean, again, when I talk to people in religious studies, they’d go the exact opposite of that. They say, “Of course there isn’t a moral imperative. Of course, there isn’t a judgment between right and wrong.” I challenge whether or not that’s true. I’m saying scientifically, you guys are men of logic, men of reason, men of science. I think you’re misinterpreting the data in a fundamental way. 

Steve Briggs: [00:01:00] Well, I can come back to that comment and my definition of evil in the very beginning and that is the act of denying another person their right of freedom, their free will.  

Alex Tsakiris: [00:01:12] Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host Alex Tsakiris and today we welcome Steve Briggs back to Skeptiko. 

Steve is really a remarkable guy. I hope you remember him from his last interview. You can check that out. He has a couple of books, one that we’re going to talk about today. I just showed it on the screen, The Tale of the Himalayan Yogis. This is a book of fiction, unlike his first book. But I wanted to just as an introduction, remind you that even though this is a book of fiction, this is a book written by a guy who spent years and years in India working at a professional level, but also working with yogis, would regularly go on retreat with some very mystical kind of crazy yogis that we all imagine in the mountains. And also working with people who were interested in meditation because Steve was a meditation teacher, a transcendental meditation teacher in India. 

So this is a fantastic opportunity to have him back on to, I was just warning him to kind of drag him into this discussion I’ve been having about evil and about these extended realms and about what we might learn about them.

 And I was really reminded to recontact Steve by Ben, a friend of mine who is an emergency room physician here in San Diego and kind of vouched for Steve, because I said, “Hey, there’s a guy you might want to talk to. You’re planning on going to India to do this kind of spiritual journey kind of thing.” Even though Ben I a Mormon he likes to expand his spiritual horizons, and he came back and he said, “Steve is the real deal, and he connected me with some people over there, a fantastic experience.” I’m not promoting Steve as like a tour guide or anything like that, but he’s the real deal, he really knows a lot of stuff about what he’s going to be talking today about, in terms of yogis and their understanding of these extended realms and what we might learn about that. 

So, Steve, welcome back. Thanks so much for joining me.

 

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Steve Briggs: [00:03:26] Well, thank you Alex,