GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast

86. What’s On Our Mind- Pay Attention

August 03, 2022 Jerry L. Martin, Scott Langdon, Richard Oxenberg
GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
86. What’s On Our Mind- Pay Attention
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Consider the language of God's communications through various traditions and experiences and how best to articulate experiences with God or spiritual experiences within these confines. Learn to experience the Atman, the Self behind the Self, and God as ever-present throughout daily life- in the texture of Andrew Wyeth's paintings, Patti LuPone's legendary career as a Broadway star, and Einstein's world-changing genius.

God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher is a revelation reported by Dr. Jerry L. Martin and offers a unique narrative account of God's experiences throughout history and beyond time. 

What's On Our Mind- features Dr. Martin and show Host and Creative Director Scott Langdon, who share a dynamic conversation recapping the latest episodes of each series:

Read God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher.

Begin the dramatic adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher

Related Episodes:
[Two Philosophers Wrestle With God] The Nature Of Human Beings [Part 1] [Part 2]; [What's On Your Mind] Spiritual Living; [Special Episode] Self Behind the Self

Related Content:
[Video] If God Spoke Today

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Scott Langdon [00:00:17] This is God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. A dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin. He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him. Episode 86. 

Scott Langdon [00:01:06] Welcome to Episode 86 of GOD: An Autobiography, The Podcast, and the seventh edition of our series What's On Our Minds. I'm Scott Langdon, and in today's episode, Jerry and I talk about how God calls us not only to listen, but to pay attention to our experiences. We focus our attention this time on episodes 83, 84, and 85, and discuss how God called Jerry, and continues to call us all, to value our experiences as they present themselves to us in our lives. One experience I was present to while relistening to this episode, is that I made a mistake during our recording. I'm about to tell you that a clip we're going to play is from episode 84. It's not. It's from episode 83. That was frustrating to find out after it was too late to re-record, but in seeking to solve this new, uncomfortable problem in front of me, God gave me the experience of hearing this episode again in a new way, and I'm really glad I did. Thanks for spending this time with us. I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Scott Langdon [00:02:23] Welcome back, everybody. This is episode 86 of our podcast, and it's the seventh time around for our series What's On Our Minds. And that's where Jerry and I get together and talk about the last three episodes, and I think we have a lot of great stuff to talk about today, Jerry. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:02:37]  Yes, I thought my discussion with Richard Oxenberg was unusually interesting this time, and we had some fascinating emails. I think we talked about emails from three different people with very different experiences, and they were all very interesting, and you might say illuminating. 

Scott Langdon [00:02:55] Very illuminating. Absolutely. The episodes that we're talking about today, episode 83 and 84 are the seventh dialogue between Richard Oxenberg and you. And then we move into episode 85, which was last week when we talked about those emails and what's on your minds. I want to go back to episode 84. That's the first part of the seventh dialogue between you and Richard. And as I went back to listen to this episode in preparation for today, one of the things that really, one of the parts of that episode that stuck out into my mind, is toward the end of it. And you and Richard, first of all, you've moved your conversation from the nature of God now to the nature of human beings. And, you know, kind of looking at it from God and human being perspective, and you're talking about the Self behind the Self. What the Hindu tradition would call the Atman, and God led you on an experience, you had an experience where God guided you into what this was like. And you and Richard talk about this and you explain the idea. And I'm going to play a little clip from that episode right now just to give us a i-- just give us the context of what I'm talking about. So let's listen to this clip from episode 84 and then we'll talk about it on the other side of it. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:04:25] So this was-- this was something you felt you had a real experience of? 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:04:30] Yes. Well, I describe that experience to the extent somebody- I'd never asked a Hindu to certify- is that the Atman? but it's my avenue to understanding the Atman, and I had that experience early on vacation. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:04:44] But you still feel connected to that level? Jerry? 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:04:49] At that point, I felt the Self behind the Self. And, it didn't occur to me at all- Oh, that's also then in turn connected to the divine. I had to go read about the Hindus before that thought came into my mind. And I don't recall going back and trying to-- but, I had mystical moments not long thereafter. But they weren't terribly connected to this experience of the Self behind the Self. 

Scott Langdon [00:05:26] So in that clip, what struck me was Richard asked you, you know, you had a real experience of that, huh, that was a real experience for you? And you said, you know, at the time it wasn't certified by a Hindu. I didn't ask anybody, you know, is this how you would talk about the Atman? You know, I didn't-- I had to read about the Hindus later. I didn't know anything about the Atman at the time. But you said this experience was my avenue into understanding the Atman. So you recognized that you were having had the experience, and then you were curious about it and delved into it. And after the research and the reading and so forth, you realized, ah, this experience was about the Atman, the Self behind the Self. I hadn't really kind of known that before. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:06:12] That's right. I hadn't studied any of these things. It's hard to.. It's hard to state how strong my ignorance was at this time. I knew nothing about the world's religions other than, you know, what you pick up out of the air from four years of college you might say. And so I knew there were like seven great religions, this kind of talk that went on around me. But I, I had never been interested in religion, and therefore I didn't bother to go study them.Occasionally, in some course, we read a little scene from something in some other tradition, a little Confucius or something, but that was it. And so what I was doing, this was on vacation, and I was praying and in prayer. I was guided to go through these steps, blank out the outside world, the next blank out-- And I knew how to do that, that was kind of a familiar activity to me, in part from the study of phenomenology. A certain type of philosophy that believes you get to the more fundamental reality that way. And then I was told, okay, now blank out that level, step behind it. And that was extremely puzzling to me. Well, I don't know what is- as I always do when I got these odd instructions, I just, well, I'll do my best. And then I described that experience there. And then later, I learned, oh, when I was just calling it the Self behind the Self, because it's what happens when you step behind your empirical flow of consciousness and as it were, observe it. And, I notice when you observe it, the self doing, the observing, it doesn't have a whole personality, it doesn't have a whole lot of-- it's not zero. It's kind of benign, and kind of interested, but not benign in a way that causes or interested in a way that causes striving. You know, it's just kind of a friendly observer at peace, you know, seeing what this flow of experience that Jerry is having is. And that's why it seems a little more impersonal. And so it's just an experience and much later I read the Hindus, and I never still have never asked you a real life Hindu- Is this how you would describe the Atman? Was this an Atman experience? But it certainly lined up in my mind with things that I was reading. When you read the Upanishads, they describe some of these things that sounded a lot like that. And so from then on I use the- I've learned since then there are multiple Indian traditions. Each one has its own understanding of the Atman, mine is a little bit heterodox because we each individually also have an Atman, you know, a kind of Jerry Self behind the Self isn't exactly the same as God's, but they both have this strong tie to the divine in them. They're like a connector to the divine of the divine into our lives, and as I say in a different way than just the way we're all part of the divine is to be part of the universe, that we're all wrapped up in it together. Us human beings, animals, matter, God, you know, we're all bound up in that together. No, this is a rather more special relationship to the divine. 

Scott Langdon [00:09:46] The particularity you've talked about that in the book, specifically Abigail, let's say. That there are other people out there that might be a potential partner, but Abigail is the particular one you love. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:10:03] Yes. 

Scott Langdon [00:10:04] And that's important, I think, you know. Oh, we are to love everyone. Yeah, but there, and yes, that's true. And also, at the same time, there is a particularity about Abigail, there is a particularity about, you know, my wife or my best friends. And there's something about that. Yes. We are all essentially Atman is the Brahman, we are all the same as God, and yet these particularities are what makes the world and life so beautiful. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:10:32] Yes, I think one of the real challenges of God: An Autobiography, is that it holds, you might say, us in a tension between two things that you might say logically, because I was a logician, you know, seem like opposites and sometimes temperamentally or something seem like opposites. And one is to dive into the one, and all is one, and one is all, and that's all you can say. And you just dive into that and get rid of all particularity, all differentiations. You know, the differences between people and circumstances and personality, and you get rid of all of that washed away. Or, people want to go the other way, and everything is just a swirl of matter around us, and there is no overarching picture, there is no overarching reality, there's nothing that they are all part of. And certainly on this other mentality, certainly nothing divine that they're all part of. You know, the universe is a wonderful place. People, such people will say, you look at the latest telescope of missions, you know, out the farthest reaches of space we've ever been able to film. And it's just dazzling, and these people will say that, but it stops there. It's the dazzling mass of the lights of superstars, I guess, in their final stages or something. Okay, that is it. Well, one has to, by God: An Autobiography, one has to keep both of these in mind. That we're very different people, have their different lives, our particular loves, and at the same time, we're all glimmers of the divine. 

Scott Langdon [00:12:14] I think that it's very helpful for me, this is also something that I didn't really know about at all until actually I started working on this project with you, read the book and you and I going back and forth, developing the episodes. And when I got to this part, the Hindu traditions and some of these other traditions that I didn't really know about and didn't understand how they talked about this sort of Self behind the Self or what the Atman was, I didn't know any of that either. And so when I started studying that as a result of this work, it was an eye opening thing for me to feel like I was able to at least- somebody else was able to articulate something that I already had experience with, but didn't really know I had the experience. You know, I didn't know how to talk about that kind of an experience. And, and now that I know that, you know, the tradition that I grew up in didn't talk about that kind of thing in that way. And now that I was exposed to these other traditions, it doesn't mean, as I've said in other episodes, I don't want to become that religion now, you know, it's just that I see a different way to articulate something that I just, oh, I know this is going on, but I don't know how to say it. And the only language I have is the language that I have of my tradition, and it's faltering, it's failing me. And so my religion must be failing me. And so you sort of jump to those con-- I sort of jump to those conclusions. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:13:44] Right, a very natural thing. 

Scott Langdon [00:13:45]  Yeah, but the reality is, it's just I hadn't heard anybody talk about a way to describe these things before. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:13:53] Yeah, I think one of the key lessons, you might say, the teachings of the whole God: An Autobiography is to pay attention to not just to the divine, but who knows where is the divine and how are you going to get in contact with it, but pay attention to your experience, daily experience. Pay attention to what it's like to love your wife, what it's like to be doing your work. You're an actor. What is it like being an actor? What is this experience? What is it like to look at those Hubble or whatever they are, I forget Webb telescope pictures- what is that like? What's happening to you when you look at those? Pay close attention and I often feel, well, you've got to articulate it in some way. And that's part of the challenge you're talking about, Scott. You know, you almost don't notice an experience if you don't have a concept to fit that experience or the right lyrics to fit. Something I notice here is that I'm just doing a description in this passage that we play. I'm just giving the description of the experience. I'm not at that point worried about the Atman, and it's not as if I felt. Oh. Now that I found the Atman, I just leave my experience behind, and I've got a bunch of Hindu concepts now and live in terms of those. No, no. Those concepts may or may not fit my experience. I need to continue to pay attention to the experience and not worry about the label too much. People do kind of rush to that. They feel a comfort, oh, there's a label for this, but that shouldn't really be necessary. You know, your experience is itself a source of authority for you. It's what tells you what reality for you is, what your reality, your lived reality is. And to pay attention to that, even if it doesn't quite fit the available vocabularies and I would say don't latch on to the first available vocabulary that comes along, because one danger of that, it can be helpful of course, there are a lot of people out there who have a lot to teach each of us, but it can have the danger of paying less nuanced attention to your experience. I was so impressed with Jenny, who said, well, it came to her that we're with God, but it seemed to have the connotation also, not just me with God, but close to, and God within. So she noticed, paying very close attention to her experience. Well, it seemed to have-- the way God was relating to me seemed to have all three of these meanings simultaneously. So we don't have a concept for all three of those simultaneously. But that was the experience, so that was the perception she was having. And she played close attention to that and gave it full credit. Didn't say, oh, this doesn't make sense. So I'm going to throw out one of the three and decide this was the real one. Maybe some people would say "within" is the only real one, and the other two are the stumbling toward "within." Some others would say, no, "with" is the real experience and not the more intimate "close to," certainly not the "within." Because I know my preference is always in terms of relationship, that's how I tend to think of the divine. But I do think people need to be very true to their experience because that's the best truth you have coming to you in your life. And I don't know if this is the right place, Scott, but I would be curious because you referred to this maybe in other episodes, or maybe it's just when we've talked offscreen, your own experience where you're growing up in the church in a way that did not really allow this or or give a way to articulate. But it seemed more and more to be like a bit hostile. The God was so much out there. That it was hard to connect to the God in here. I don't know. I'd just be interested, because we all have our experiences in part in terms of what our spiritual need is. 

Scott Langdon [00:18:22] Yeah. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:18:22] And very nicely, the divine corrects for that. You know, as one writer says, "God is happy to come to us in whatever way we sincerely imagine God." And I thought that was a little too wide open. But this guy is a Catholic priest and a professor of theology, so presumably he has a real reason for saying that. But anyway, you know, I'm assuming that when certain things strike you, Scott, that that is an answer to your situation. Right, in some fundamental way?

Scott Langdon [00:19:09] Yeah. I think, you know, now that I am on the kind of the other side of things here in terms of, you know, looking back on my growing up in the tradition that I grew up in, one of the things along the way that I've realized is, you know, I used to think, oh, you know, I've got to forgive people in that tradition. I'm kind of wounded. And then the more I thought about it, I was like, you know, no, no one did anything but love me. This is just where is my, honestly, you know, so where's my thing about it? And what I realized was what I've been looking for all along is a way to try to articulate some feelings and experiences that I knew I had deeply that either were we just didn't have the language to talk about in our tradition, or whatever. And the mystery of some of these experiences would just be, oh, well, you know, we'll leave that up to God. And then we sort of cough and move on because we just don't know how to talk about it. And looking to another tradition to find a way to articulate these experiences was not something that we did then as much as we might do now. I think a lot of that has to do with technology being what it is, the Internet being invented. We can, you know, just go on and research a lot of things and we can, you know, watch videos of other people telling us their experience and listen to things. It's so much different than it was growing up for me, growing up in the seventies, eighties and nineties. So once I sort of started to allow or just feel the pull of curiosity and wanting to articulate things as being okay to do and looking into that, and really getting into that as a result of this project. What I realized was the experience, a lot of experiences that I had just in my everyday, are experiences of the Atman, like you talked about. 

Scott Langdon [00:21:48] But let me give you an example of something that just recently happened to me, and now I'm aware of being able to talk about it like this, so it's pretty poignant. I just closed the play at the Walnut Street Theater called Blithe Spirit, and in that play, I played a doctor and my wife and I come over to this other-- to the lead character's house. It's a gentleman and his wife, and they invite me and my wife over for dinner and entertainment. And we're sitting there in the scene. We just get there and we all sit kind of sit down on the couch in the chair and have a drink in hand. And we're having a conversation and I'm sitting in the chair on stage and I hear someone's phone go off in the audience. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:22:33] Oh, wow. 

Scott Langdon [00:22:34] And so I'm drawn out of the scene. Scott Langdon is now hearing this phone and yet I'm still Dr. Bradman in the scene. So in about a half a second, here's everything that happened. Patti LuPone is a Broadway legend, and very recently she's in a (I think it just closed) she's in a Broadway show called Company by Stephen Sondheim. And something happened in the audience, and she broke character and famously, you know, yelled at the person to turn their phones off. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:23:12] Yes, I read about that. 

Scott Langdon [00:23:13] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, that's Patti LuPone. She's been doing this for five decades. Right? A legend. And she can do that, I guess. And, you know, you might disagree with it or agree there, but there it was, and she had an effect. In those couple of seconds that that phone went off, what happened in my head was, I can't believe this phone is going off. Maybe I should say something? I should break the fourth wall and tell this person you should knock that off. But who do you think you are Patti LuPone?  That wouldn't work if I do it. Patti LuPone can get away with it, but not me. I've got to get back in the scene here. What's my next line? What did she just say to me? All of that happened in Scott Langdon's head in a half a second. That's the scene that-- did we mess up, did we mess up? No, nobody knew anything, but what happened was I noticed all of that chatter in my head. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:24:06] Yes. 

Scott Langdon [00:24:07] And that's just me. That's my, Scott Langdon's mind going crazy. And the step, the Self behind the Self that we're talking about now, I feel like that's the one I just observed that, I just realized that I was doing it. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:24:24] Yeah, that's a good example. 

Scott Langdon [00:24:25] That to me is, I feel like I was in tune with God, there. I realized, I mean, when God says, I want you to be in tune with Me. Well, what's that mean? It's noticing what's going on. That to me is that's it. And it becomes a place of perspective from which you move forward in action. You say, okay, now what? But when my mind is going, what should I do, Patti LuPone blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? Scott is going nuts. But the place of seeing that, going, hey, you're going nuts. That's not helpful. Stop that chatter. Concentrate. Okay. And you get back to the graces, the perspective, and now you can get back into the world, if you will. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:25:10] Yeah, that's a wonderful story, Scott. And surely we all have moments like that if we just notice them. I mean, that's what the lesson to us here is. Although, that could have happened and you could have thought that's it. But in fact, even if you think that's it. You're stepping behind the experience. What is that? Well, it's what you- you're the Self behind the Self, observed happening. And then, you know, what I'm told in these passages is, well, that's kind of like the divine and, you know, and it never, I'm always told don't push these identity categories as though then everything ends up one big soup. But it's something close to an identity with God going through that with you, or helping you see it, or something like that. God experiencing it as well. 

Scott Langdon [00:26:41] In the Hindu tradition, the more I look into the Atman, and the Atman is the Brahman. The Brahman, that essentialness, is described in a lot of those traditions as nothing, just no thing. And it's nothing. There's energy there. There's an energy in the knowing, it's not just flat and nothing. What is it that prompted me to know I was seeing it? And not just, you know, because we-- this happens to us all the time. This is our lives, and yet, what is this moment that I'm, oh, pay attention to that, oh, pay attention to that. It's not-- there is something different in the execution of the realization of an idea that's more than a happenstance. Sometimes I feel like, oh, that's really-- I noticed that. And other times it really feels like, hey, notice this, there's an umph, quiet down, notice. What are you noticing? There's a guidance. That's the partnership place. When I'm quiet and I'm easy, then God's like, okay, here we are. And then I start to get what God is telling me. He's communicating with me. I hear that quote unquote soft voice, if you will. It's a leading. It's not just me spinning around in space, not doing anything. It's– I'm being led somewhere. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:28:01] Yes, yes, yes. I tend to not take it that far. And there are countervailing passages in God: An Autobiography, where God's coming to us in a lot of different ways. And our partnership occurs in a variety of venues, and sometimes it's more like out there. You'll always need some kind of right attitude and to be paying attention. I mean, you know, it's nothing you can talk about that doesn't have the insider aspect to it, after all. Otherwise you wouldn't be talking about it, you know, E=MC^2, you know, Jerry is thinking that and having a con-- no doubt that means many things to me, not just the propositional content that I barely understand, but, you know, it's an example of a great truth of physics, or something, the genius of Einstein, you know, it has all kinds of connotations in one's life. But I'm thinking of experiences that I had, like seeing the Andrew Wyeth paintings, where my experience of that was not to go inside, but that God was sort of being enabled to be shown on the surface of these paintings. It's as if in their very texture, the divine element, Wyeth, was enabling that divine element to come through, and that was my experience of that. I would think. Scott I mean, you can redescribe any of these, of course, in interior forms, I'm looking at paintings, etc., but the way I would naturally describe it without trying to assimilate it to this model or that model, is that I was seeing the God presence in those paintings, and that's, like, out there. I would think Scott, it would be interesting to know how you would describe this. You have probably had intense experiences of the divine singing in a chorus, in one of these Bach crowds, or whatever you sing, and there's an interior dimension there,,but I would think it's also, God is present here. Right? With all of us, it's a communal experience of the divine. Right? 

Scott Langdon [00:30:26] Yeah, absolutely. That's a great point, and I, there's a story to follow that up. The other night. Sarah, my wife, Sarah, and I went to the Academy of Music to see a friend of ours in the national tour of To Kill a Mockingbird, the play. The script just was on Broadway with Jeff Daniels, recently, and this tour stars Richard Thomas. If you remember, John--. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:30:50] Yes! Indeed! 

Scott Langdon [00:30:51] He's been you know, he's been acting, you know, for years and years. But he plays Atticus Finch, and it was in the Academy of Music, which is this really big, if you've never seen it or know of it, it, you know, a multi balcony, beautiful old, gorgeous theater. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:31:05] Wow. 

Scott Langdon [00:31:05] And it's a very poignant play, if you don't know To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:31:09] I've recently read the book, not the play, but I recently read the book. Atticus Finch is the kind of person I'm trying to be. I relate to him very strongly, and it's a wonderful book and I gather a good play. 

Scott Langdon [00:31:26] Very much so, and a very you know, it's a difficult story, and one that, you know about racism and so forth. And it's very poignant even today. But this particular production, you know, they're going through the story and I'm sitting there in 10th row in the balcony here and I'm following the play all along. And then there's just one moment where Richard Thomas, as Atticus Finch, you know, was delivering a monologue. And he, you know, he turns face out, you know, to the audience. And he's delivering this speech. And it just something inside me was like, pay attention to this. I was paying attention, but it was like, look, this right here. And the words based on Harper Lee's novel written by Aaron Sorkin in the play here and delivered by Richard Thomas as the character Atticus Finch, squarely with those words and that intention and that thought about who we are today in our lives and how are we going to deal with, you know, racism and it's going to ruin us if we don't look at the humanity in every person, you know, all of that speech and it's just going right through me. And I kind of welled up. So in a sense. Yeah. God was active in Richard Thomas in that character at that moment to deliver from out there something that came to me, you could say, and I got me internally and clicked. Now, two or three people aside from me, maybe, maybe this guy over here is asleep and maybe this woman's looking at, you know, trying to get outside. But to me, it went right to me. So there's this collective, I don't know how everybody else kind of took it, or if they were in or this other moment meant more to me than that. We're all having this collective experience. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:33:11] Yes. 

Scott Langdon [00:33:11] And yet there's this specific thing that seems to have been directed just to me in that moment. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:33:16] Well, what I'm often fascinated by is what I call the differential presence of God. I mean, there's this universal presence, the divine is everything. And we're part of it. And it's part of us. And so is the furniture and the trees and flowers and stars. But there are other moments in which God is present or the divine, if you don't want it to be overly theistic. The Divine is present in a very distinctive way that even the discussion we've had of those moments of the Atman experience, that even that was different from just being part of the one and all the all in one. Even that was different. And then my experience of Andrew Wyeth, your experience of the theater and part o what's amazing, and again, if you're having this rationalist side that I have, very hard to compute, is how can it be that in this big audience, with this script that wasn't designed for Scott, that wasn't Richard Thomas not designed to be saying this to Scott, you know, and so on. It's all, you might say, quite impersonal in that way. And it's to the whole audience who bring completely different attitudes, experiences, and I would think spiritual needs, or life needs to that play to that moment. Anytime you go to play, this isn't the only thing going on in your life. A lot of things are going on in your life. Right? So this moment in part takes its meaning not just from the theater, but from your whole life that you have with you as you sit in the theater. And within all of that, there's something very distinctively particular to Scott- a divine communication to Scott. And as I say, my rationalist side, I think, well how could that be? The script is already written, etc., etc.. It's not as though Richard Thomas, I assume, felt a sudden urge to turn and look right at Scott. Right? Right. He's doing it the way he did for everybody. And there may have been other people in the audience, of course, taking all kinds of aesthetic things from it, or moral lessons from it, or who knows what. And that's for them. That's what you might say, if we're I tend to be generous about people, that they're taking from the play, what they need. And that's what you hope. I mean, people can be stubborn and resistant and not paying attention to what they need, you know. But if they're watching with the kind of sensitivity and openness of soul and heart and mind, then they're going to take something in. And it may just be a good lesson that they take in, but it may be something very specific for them, as this line was for Scott. And the critical thing, from my point of view that you're doing, Scott, is you were noticing that and crediting it. You know, you're not just dismissing it. And there's a lot of tendency in our secular scientific age to dismiss these kinds of more subtle moments and insights that come to us. So anyway, the bottom line is pay attention to your life, not just, you know, I'm always saying pay attention to signals of the new line, but just pay attention to your life, to what your experience is actually telling you from one moment to the next. What are you learning in it? How are you connecting with reality, with people around you, with whatever elements of the divine are being present to you? Just pay attention. 

Scott Langdon [00:37:15] Thank you for listening. To God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. Subscribe for free today wherever you listen to your podcasts and hear a new episode every week. You can hear the complete dramatic adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin, by beginning with episode one of our podcast and listening through its conclusion with Episode 44. You can read the original true story in the book from which this podcast is adapted. God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher, available now at Amazon.com, and always at godanautobiography.com. Pick up your own copy today. If you have any questions about this or any other episode, please email us at questions@godanautobiography.com and experience the world from God's perspective as it was told to a philosopher. This is Scott Langdon. I'll see you next time.

Introduction
Review of Episode 83: The Atman and Nature of Human Beings
Understanding The Self Behind The Self And Love
The Language Of God From Traditions And Reader Experiences
Experiencing Atman, Or The Self Behind The Self
God's Presence In Painting, Theater, Writing, Science, Art, And Life
The Takeaway: Pay Attention
Outro And Contact Information