Ep287: Dawn of Mind - James Cooke PhD

In this episode I am joined by Dr James Cooke, Oxford-trained neuroscientist, spiritual teacher, and author of “Dawn of Mind: How Matter Became Conscious and Alive”.

James recounts how, at aged 13, an existential crisis driven by fear of hell saw him emerge into a profound mystical opening. James shares the radical changes he experienced and traces his subsequent years spent exploring and integrating this spiritual breakthrough.

James recalls his improbable journey to winning a place at Oxford University, discusses the remarkable overlaps he found there between cutting-edge neuroscience and his own awakening, and reveals the social structures of elite education in the UK.

James details the arduous and often overlooked post-awakening work of surrendering egoic structures and releasing attachments, explains why enlightenment is both a gain and a loss, and reflects on the challenges of teaching nonduality as a natural mystic.

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Topics include:

00:00 - Intro
01:07 - Why did James write Dawn of Mind?
03:43 - Making consciousness science accessible
04:41 - Catholic upbringing as an overly conscientious child
05:49 - Disturbed by hell
06:38 - Existential rumination and a crisis of faith
08:27 - Spiritual awakening at age 13
09:54 - Aftermath of James’ awakening
12:59 - Life affirming vs death affirming phases of awakening
15:16 - Letting go of attachments
17:24 - What happened to James’ excessive conscientiousness?
19:41 - Non-attached compassion
20:00 - Two mistakes about the no-self
21:15 - Freedom from extremes and how to let go of attachments
23:39 - James’ experience of the dissolving self
24:44 - Is therapy really necessary?
26:44 - Meditation as a gradual path
27:15 - Meditation vs therapy
28:37 - Practice in life vs joining a monastery
30:11 - Can a natural mystic really teach others?
32:37 - Alienation through spiritual language
33:21 - Enlightenment as loss
34:27 - 3 types of spiritual teacher
36:30 - James’ profile as a teacher
37:47 - Self-aggrandising nondual teachers
38:38 - James’ spiritual influences
40:40 - Adyashanti and the end of suffering
42:08 - Using the Buddhist progress of insight model
43:59 - Volatile teenage years post awakening
44:57 - Extreme somatic tension and active inference
36:25 - Extremely difficult integration phase
47:39 - James’ experience at Oxford University and dealing with pressure
50:26 - How James got into Oxford University against all odds
54:07 - Social context of elite education in the UK
56:52 - The Oxford wound
58:11 - The mystic’s mistake and post-awakening
01:00:15 - James’ research path at Oxford University
01:01:39 - Opening a path for others + psychedelic self experimentation
01:04:13 - James’ last psychedelic trip
01:05:12 - How to work with beliefs
01:07:29 - Unravelling resistance and faking it
01:10:40 - Is there an end to post-awakening work?
01:13:54 - James’ changing experience of intimate relationships
01:17:25 - Charlatans and why awakening can be off-putting for friends
01:19:30 - Alienating terminology about awakening
01:19:48 - Feeling isolated after awakening
01:20:33 - Mimicking awakening and the nondual teaching circuit
01:22:05 - Why did James wait so long to go public with his awakening?
01:25:57 - Reaction of James’ family
01:26:51 - Moral perfection and self empowerment
01:30:37 - Why James doesn’t like the word “enlightenment”
01:31:10 - The problem with “awakening”
01:32:31 - Language phases and changing the lingo
01:33:20 - The Borg and analogies for awakening
01:34:42 - Siddhi, intuition, and supernatural powers
01:36:48 - Insecure rockstars and kundalini
01:38:39 - The language game of science
01:39:11 - Hearing voices and the dramatising brain
01:40:58 - The real world as a shared hallucination
01:42:45 - Does James suffer?
01:44:56 - Gross vs subtle suffering
01:45:52 - An experience of bright physical pain
01:47:08 - Meditative austerities vs practice in life
01:50:46 - Trainings in equanimity
01:51:49 - Ideas in Dawn of Mind
01:53:20 - An instinct for empowerment
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Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James

[Dawai]

Great talk guys, very nice exploration of the mind/body experience. I like the way Dr. Cooke described his experience so honestly.

[humanitarianly]

Thank you, with compassion to the others for a peaceful pathway through humanity's struggle.

[BenBotto]

Thank you for sharing. I very much enjoyed this conversation. Great questions and great answers. I particular enjoyed the parts about alienation, and the relationship between "misbehavior" and suppression.

[MGNeu]

remarkably entertaining and fascinating appearance of a conversation indeed!

[vvvvaaaacccc]

I don't know why, but I believe what he's saying about himself.

[tenzinthomasmasami]

Very good. The practice is bodhicitta and the two truths.🙏💙

[ahvgg]

I like the monopoly analogy, mindfulness, one of the requirements for the right view, is all about not losing sight of the context, ie. not getting too absorbed in the object of your attention...

[charlesrae]

I can recommend Robert Forman's book Enlightenment ain't all it's cracked up to be, a fascinating study of post-enlightenment life.

[zelareka]

if dead matter can become alive.. was it dead to begin with ?

[AyahuascaMagic]

a lot of these non dual guys like to dismiss kundalini. seems like a real misunderstaning

[TheWayofFairness]

Hopefully these ideas will work for you and become your idea of truth also. I am creating a religion on this idea. We do not care if there was intelligence in the first place

Thinking causes all of our problems and also all of our solutions. If you have a problem, it is because you are not thinking right. Wrong thinking is like having the cart in front of the horse. The horse must be in front of the cart so it can make the cart move.


We don’t create reality. Only God does. We cannot change God. We can change our reality with actions. There are human servants of God and there are powerful - non-human - servants of God. Non-Human servants of God can change reality with actions in a big way. They empower us to be able to change reality with our thoughts as well as with our actions. Either the non-human servants of God created our reality as a simulation, that they can alter as if it is a video game, or they have the ability to alter our reality, as if it is a video game.

God created reality within God. God did not create reality outside of God. There is not anything outside of God. God is everything and everyone. God doesn't need you to surrender to God. Instead surrender to the idea that God is you. God is you and always has been and always will be. It is you that fights against God by not accepting that God is everything that happened and everything that is happening and God will be whatever happens in the future. God is everyone. God is our goodness and our evil.

Team Fairness is a servant of God. Become a servant of God also. Servants of God choose to not do anyone wrong and to care about everyone. We depend on God’s creation. We depend on the servants of God. When you're having some difficulty ask for the servants of God to help you. We are grateful for the servants of God.

People that don’t understand God's way of fairness sometimes try to force us into surrendering to them. They are not servants of God. They are not asking for the servants of God to help them with their difficulty. They are trying to be God themselves. It is not possible. God is already them and God is everything they are doing.

God is a singularity. There are not different God’s that fight each other. God is the people that are fair to each other and God is the people that do others wrong. God is Jesus and God is Satan. We cannot change God. God is the only thing that never changes. Jesus and Satan can change, but not God. It is not possible to defeat God.

Whatever is going on it is God doing it so be totally alright with it. We ask for help with it from God's servants. We are also God’s servant to help with it. In this way we are not fighting against anything because we know the victory will be God’s.

We have all done others wrong in the past. We all have issues in the past that trouble us. Correct thinking will unburden us with the past. It will no longer trouble us. By using this God thinking I described all issues past or present are resolved. Everything that happened in the past was God.

Did God have intelligence in the beginning or did intelligence evolve from biological evolution? We do not care either way. We look for evidence of things. We ask a servant of God for help with the opinions of others. After all God is doing what they do and speak. We don’t fight against anything. Servants of God are here to help with the conflict. They will make it go away. We can just think, whatever. God is us. We don’t exist. The problem doesn't exist. Only God exists.

Imagine that there is a person with a knife that tells us we are wrong. Only God exists. Whatever will be will be. God is the person with the knife and also the knife. God is also the policeman that finds out about the person with the knife. God is the gun that the policeman has. God is the handcuffs on the hands of the person that had the knife. How can someone tell us that we are wrong? We don’t exist. Only God exists.

Wrong thinking causes our problems. A silent, no thought mind stops the wrong thinking. Just stop thinking. Inspiration will come.

Sometimes it seems the only way to stop others from doing us wrong is to affirm that if they do us wrong, they are going to get hurt. You can simply think the thought, or you can even tell the other with words, directly or with a message. We can explain that it will be a servant of God that actually gives them pain or an unpleasant smell or taste. It might make them faint. It may even end their life. If I am extremely disturbed by their wrongdoing, I imagine hurting them myself. We can even imagine ending their life. Some people seem desperate to put us under their control. They will lie to us trying to control us. We do not need to accept this. Stay friends. Try to convince them to become a servant of God also. When they agree to not do you wrong and to care about you, they are completely forgiven, and all their guilt is erased.

For more on this please read The World Fairness Agreement.

[humanitarianly]

6:38 this reminds me of my orthodox childhood and the shame I feel because I could go to hell.

[LawrenceGreco]

I've been following Dr. James's speeches and his career for a very long time, and I knew him to be a good and well-intentioned man. But sadly, over the past few years, he's been increasingly deceiving himself, and that will only bring him suffering.