Infinite Bliss Ep. 1 – Boy What an EGO

The Story of Mat’s EGO Death and Spiritual Awakening

In this episode of the Infinite Bliss podcast, find out how Mat’s ego-death and awakening experience can help you change your own life. It’s quite an epic unraveling. From feeling superior, to feeling like a complete loser due to a string of unfortunate events. The story reveals a steady fall into the abyss of despair with a beautiful and instantaneous transformation waiting at the bottom.

Follow the story and relive his experience of overwhelming stress and depression being instantly replaced by inner-peace, joy and infinite bliss. Learn all about his motivation behind starting the podcast and his vision for how it can help you.

Thank you so much for listening and being part of this journey.

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Transcript

You’re listening to the Infinite Bliss Podcast. I’m your host, Mat Robinson, the gregarious hermit, join me each week as I take you on a journey of inner exploration to uncover the subtle connections between mind, body and spirit. I want to teach you how to regain control of your mind so you can let go of the drama in your life and experience Deep inner peace and infinite bliss.

Hi everybody. Welcome and thank you so much for joining me.

This first episode is going to be a little bit different. It’s actually going to be quite selfish because it’s going to be all about me. I mean, boy, what an ego, right? Let’s make the first episode all about myself.

But if I’m going to teach you about silencing your mind, finding inner peace and infinite bliss, then it helps if you understand a little bit about where I’m coming from. I want to share with you a crazy but beautiful experience I had that completely changed my life. So I’d like to share my awakening story with you.

The Rise of an EGO

To start, I’m going to take you back in time just a little bit. When I was younger, I was a hotshot software engineer, and I thought I was better than everybody else. And I knew I was better than everybody else because that little voice in my head kept telling me so.

So I used to go around criticizing people, not making fun of them, but just pointing out all of their faults and saying things like, Well, you could do better if you studied as hard as I did, or if you worked as hard as I did, or if you were as smart as I was.

I was comparing myself to everyone.

But it was okay, right? It was all just in my head. I wasn’t speaking the words out loud, so I wasn’t offending anybody.

But little did I know that each time I heard that voice in my head, my ego was getting stronger.

In the nineties, I came to the US and worked for a really large tech company as a software engineer, and I was making really good money.

I met a beautiful woman. We went on email learning adventures together. We got married, we got a house, we had a couple of beautiful kids. Life was amazing and I was really living the dream.

The EGO Leads Me Down a Path of Greed

But the company I worked for started to go downhill really quickly. So I started to look around to see what else I could do. And because I was smarter than everybody else, or at least that’s what I thought. I started my own software company that very quickly morphed into a web design company, and that turned out to be the perfect marriage between my tech skills, my engineering mind, and also my natural, creative and artistic talents.

But then, not long after I started the company, the dot bombs happened and outsourcing became a thing.

So I started to look around again for the next opportunity. Now, I was taking a lot of portraits and a lot of product shots for the web designs that I was doing, and so I’d actually become quite a good creative photographer, and it was something that I really enjoyed. Again, it was just such a good balance between my creative skills, my artistic eye and my tech skills, understanding the cameras, the controls, the lighting. So it was just a natural fit and it seemed like a really obvious progression.

So we pivoted once again and opened a photography studio, and that was actually one of the happiest days of my life. Brick and mortar right on the high street. My name up in lights on that billboard. Boy, was my ego getting bigger. And now I was really living the dream.

And people still have to be there in person to get their picture taken. So it’s outsource proof, right? Or so I thought. But then smartphone phones and social media really started to take off.

So now all of a sudden, why would somebody come and pay for an expensive portrait to hang over their fireplace when they could post a grainy, out-of-focus, blurry photograph of themselves with their family in a restaurant or on a beach somewhere and get all of the social validation that they could ever dream of.

Plus, cameras got easier to use and cheaper. So it seemed all of a sudden that everybody with a decent camera developed a photography side hustle. And so one by one, all of the portrait studios in our area all started to go out of business. We hung in there for quite a while, but we definitely started to struggle to.

The Crumbling Dream

Some months were good, some months were bad, some months were terrible. So we started to rack up some credit card debt and things got really bad When we started to miss mortgage payments. And I don’t know if you know this, but as soon as you miss a mortgage payment, the bank literally calls you up every single day to see when you’re going to be able to catch up and if you still plan to keep the house.

So it’s like a daily reminder of just how badly you’re doing. It’s humiliating.

And I do want to do a quick shout out to our landlord, Jeff Dickerson who was incredibly understanding. He didn’t just throw us out on the street. He gave us the flexibility to make it through that tough time. He definitely wanted the best for us, for which my wife and I will be forever grateful.

But the stress of that daily battle and the constant grind really started to get to me. I was working all hours that I could. Evenings, weekends, and really not having a fun time of life.

And on top of that, we were still trying to raise a young family. We had two beautiful young children, and I was missing out on all of those family opportunities because I was working so hard to make ends meet.

All the stress and drama in my life kept me awake at night. So I was just exhausted and not functioning well at all.

And then one year we lost five really close relatives in quick succession, including one nephew in his early twenties.

Hitting Rock Bottom

But the final straw for me was when I learned that my best friend had been diagnosed with brain cancer.

I thought, how could this guy who’s successful, good looking, beautiful wife, beautiful house, beautiful daughter, will champion triathlete if something like that could just basically give him a death sentence and wipe all of their hopes and dreams of the future off the table, then what is life all about? What’s the point? Life just didn’t seem to make any sense to me.

The news of my friend was just devastating to me. I felt like I was at rock bottom and I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t figure out what to do. But what happened next was truly amazing and changed my life forever.

I was so overwhelmed with everything that was going on in my life at the time. And so one night I just lay there on the living room carpet, staring up at the ceiling fan. And as I lay there, my mind started to wrestle with all of the problems that I had. How could I fix this? How could I pay my bills? How could I earn more money? How could I work more efficiently? And how could I spend more time with my family?

My mind was thrashing and I really felt trapped. Almost like I was drowning.

I wasn’t just letting myself down. I was dragging my wife and kids with me. I’d even let my parents and grandparents down who’d had so much hope for me when I was younger.

When the EGO Turns on Itself

The pressure was unbearable. I could feel the dream crumbling. But unlike previous pivots, there didn’t seem to be an obvious exit ramp this time.

And at some point my mind started to get really mean and it started to question every single decision I’d ever made.

It literally went through my entire life and said, Why did you come to the States? Why did you get married? Why did you have kids? Why did you give up your well-paid engineering job?

And my head was just spinning with all these thoughts, and it was getting louder and louder.

And I’d never really experienced a negative mind like that before. Up until that point, I was always very optimistic. The glass was always half full and I was always looking to the future. There was always something that was going to save us. One new project that was going to make it big and solve all of our problems.
But that night my mind got really negative and it became really mean.

Remember, I was the kid that felt superior to everybody else, but now I felt like a complete failure, a complete loser.

And my mind really seemed to enjoy telling me that.

A Beautiful Awakening and Transformation

But as I lay there, just listening to this maelstrom going on in my head, I suddenly felt this strange tingle at the base of my spine. And it was very subtle at first, but I noticed this energy starting to grow and radiate outwards.

And I do remember thinking, Well, that’s the last thing I need. Now I’ve got some medical condition on top of all the drama that’s going on in my life. Something else for me to worry about.

But as that sensation of burning grew, it grabbed all of my attention and all of my focus went to just observing that tingle.

And it started to grow bigger and bigger and slowly start to move up my spine. And when it reached my heart, I just felt compelled to put my fingers together in that classic meditation pose that you see people doing, where they touch their thumb and forefinger together to make like a little loop.

And as soon as my fingertips touched, that energy surged right up my spine and into my skull.

And I was propelled into this space of just unimaginable beauty and infinite bliss.

Hence the name of the podcast.

It was such a beautiful feeling. The room had disappeared and I was just floating, bodiless, but just floating in this space that went on in every direction as far as you could see. Just beautiful patterns and shapes and colors.

And it was mesmerizing. And I just can’t even begin to describe it. There just aren’t words to describe and explain the things that I experienced. Like you can’t describe or imagine a color that you’ve never seen before. But that feeling of pure love and being connected to every single thing in the universe felt so amazing and so peaceful.

I felt like all of my problems had gone away and were just replaced by this peace and bliss and just this joy and pure love. It was like being wrapped in a really warm blanket.

Knowing Replaces Thinking

But the most incredible thing to me was this knowing it wasn’t a voice in my head, I didn’t hear any words, but just knowing that everything was going to be okay.

And it just brought such relief from all of the drama and all the struggles.

And I have no idea how long I was in that state. But eventually, the ceiling fan came back into view and I became aware of the room again. But this peace just pervaded my whole being.

Every single cell in my body felt alive, but it felt at peace. Like everything was in perfect harmony.

Now, I hadn’t slept well for years at this point, but that night when I went up to bed, I fell right to sleep and had the most sound sleep I’d had in such a long time. And I woke up the next morning really early, just full of energy.

But the one thing that really stood out to me was that my mind was completely silent.

There was no voice in my head. Usually I woke up in the morning with this feeling of dread or panic. Who’s going to call that day? Is the bank finally going to foreclose on the house? And I’m going to lose everything. But instead, there was just this peace, and every action I did felt natural. It wasn’t forced.

I went down to the studio that day and work just happened. Instead of procrastinating and worrying which customer might call first. There was just doing an action. No real effort or thought.

But naturally, I was curious about what had happened to me. So I started frantically googling, although at first I didn’t really know what to search for. So I started to look for the symptoms of tingling and energy at the base of the spine.

But the only things I found kept talking about aneurysms and strokes and heart attacks, herniated disks, muscle cramps, and even people getting electrocuted. All kinds of things like that. But none of it really matched my experience.

The Rise of Kundalini Energy

Until that is, I came across one term from a yoga article that talked about Kundalini energy, and I’d never meditated in my life or done yoga, but all of a sudden, the description of this ancient energy that resides at the base of the spine and how Kundalini practices or Kundalini yoga try to encourage this energy to grow and rise up through your body, up through your chakras.

And I had no idea what a chakra was at the time, but basically this energy rises up through your body until it reaches the top of your head, and at which point you are then connected directly to the universe and you experience oneness. And that described my experience perfectly.

So now all of a sudden, I felt like I had a home. Like I wasn’t just going crazy. And that brought tremendous relief to. Now I had an explanation as to what had happened.

As hard as my mind tried and thrashed around in every direction, it couldn’t find a solution to the predicament I was in. And so it simply quit. And I experienced what’s known as an ego death, a complete loss of identity.

It’s also referred to as the long, dark night of the soul, where your mind starts to question your very existence and the meaning of life. When your ego disappears and steps aside, you have no attachment to this body anymore. So all that remains is the peace and the connectedness of the universe.

Not a Guru in the Traditional Sense

There are people that devote their entire lives researching and seeking an experience like this. So I feel like a bit of a fraud sometimes. I just happen to be in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time. Whichever way you look at it.

My ego couldn’t handle the situation I was in, and so it simply quit. But that allowed me to see the big picture and see the oneness of the universe.

The Realization of Separation (Mind, Body and Spirit)

Now that bliss that I felt lasted for about a year before my mind slowly started talking to me again. Only this time I was a witness to that voice in my head, rather than it being me talking to myself. And it became so obvious where all of those conversations come from. Past experiences and trauma leading to fears. And those fears cause your mind to constantly look for its advantage.

Our minds are nothing more than primitive survival computers always looking for danger and problems. And as you can imagine, something that’s designed to look for problems is somehow going to find them. We’re really going to dive into this in much more detail in future episodes. But your mind is always looking for its advantage.

We don’t face the same kind of physical threats that our ancestors used to, but now we’re afraid of other people and other minds.

What are other people thinking about me?

I’m not afraid of being attacked by a wild animal, but I am afraid of confrontation and judgment from other people because those are things that have happened to me in the past.

In our modern world of abundance and choice. We spend so much time judging and comparing options that we’ve got really good judgment. But because we’ve got so good at judging, our minds have become afraid of judgment. And that’s why your mind spends so much time narrating your life, basically justifying and defending your actions or criticizing other people, attacking them.

Bombshell – Your Mind Isn’t Talking to YOU

Your mind isn’t talking to you. It’s literally just rehearsing conversations to have with other people in case you get into a confrontation.

Your mind is just looking for your advantage. What makes you superior? What conversation would let you win an argument? And it’s actually very easy to see that when you start to pay close attention to those conversations in your head, when you can see that you’re separate from those conversations, that you are separate from your mind, then all of your suffering ends because your problems are no longer problems.

They’re just experiences. They’re just things that need doing.

You’re no longer connected or attached to the conversation in your head, so you lose all the drama. Nothing is personal anymore.

And sure, I get it. You can’t just tell somebody that all of their problems are in their head. But when you see it, you see it. And that’s kind of the point of this podcast to help you see that you are not those conversations in your head.

A Silent Mind Releases You from Drama and Struggle

I wouldn’t wish my struggles on anybody else, but I am so incredibly grateful that I went through that experience.

Through my awakening, I got to see the types of conversations your mind has when it feels superior, like when I was a young software engineer, or when it feels inferior, like when I was struggling in my business.

But I also got to see what happens when you lose that voice in your head completely.

When I had a silent mind, the world still went on. No conversation in my head changed any aspect of my physical reality or my ability to operate and function in the real world.

But when my mind slowly started to grow again and I started to hear that voice in my head, it became so obvious where those conversations came from and what your mind is doing when you think it’s talking to you.

So everything that I’m going to teach you in this podcast or everything that we’re going to talk about all the way from basic stress relief through meditation, mindfulness and presence, gratitude, right the way through learning unconditional love as a way to change how you perceive the world and even going as far as enlightenment and out of body experiences and getting in touch with your spirit. They all stem from that one life changing experience that I had.

So this podcast really promises quite a lot and I really hope that I can deliver. I know I’m not the best presenter in the world, but I am going to get better, I promise, because I feel so strongly that this information could help so many people in the world.

I really wish that I could just touch people right on the forehead and give them the experience that I had. But unfortunately I can’t do that. I don’t have that superpower, but I can give you the stepping stones and the insights into how your mind works, why it causes stress and anxiety, why it causes you to struggle with life and why you feel unfulfilled and just wanting more.

I’ll give you the tools and the confidence to ignore those thoughts in your head and silence your mind.

My Dream for YOU

All right. Thank you so much for listening to me waffle on about my own life. My ego is very grateful, but I do promise that going forward, this podcast is going to be all about you.

I want you to experience unconditional love in a piece and infinite bliss.

It’s well within your grasp. You just have to be willing to do just a little bit of work each day. And so I’m here to keep you motivated and encourage you on your journey.

All right. Don’t forget to, like and subscribe and I’ll catch you on the next episode. Thanks for listening.

This episode of the Infinite Bliss Podcast is dedicated to my best friend, Doug Clark, who sadly passed away in 2016 after courageously battling his cancer for two years.

I miss you, my friend. We all do.

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