00:00
Luke
Hi, I’m Luke I’m in an AR and VR XR evangelists. Open up new markets for innovation technologies as one of the first movers in the VR AR space back in 2014, when Facebook first purchased the office.
00:15
Samuel
Nice. We were just talking now about kind of where you’ve come from and how this is all come around. Cause I mean, the metaverse now is such a huge topic and everyone’s very excited around it and it’d be great to kind of get into all that, but where does your experience stem from and how did you get into this? Because VR is fairly new. The concept and idea has been part of Spotify for God knows how many years, but where did, where do you stem from that?
00:42
Luke
My background is animation, so I trained as a traditional animator. I worked in the animations for several years. I would be called a multi-disciplinary and the animation fiddly screen really means I’ve worked in 2d hand-drawn animation, 3d stop motion effects and across the board from traditional animation series as to music, videos and commercials to working on some motion pictures. Like preparing some stuff for them, but it was, I worked for big NBC who were a big VFX company.
01:19
Samuel
So it’s hand drawn.
01:21
Luke
Animation hand drawn was my training. I was also a concept artist for awhile. So, you kind of, there’s a kind of, there’s a roadmap to kind of animation. People graduate, they usually start off as a storyboard artist or a, or if you go into pure animation, you actually do a cleanup sell. So, the old school Disney animation would, that’d be the animator, the main guy. As even in between our guy who draws the frames and between the key animations cause the, this like the chef and sous chef, or Hey, the in-between there is basically filling in the timing between the key poses of what kind of drive the scene and then the, in between the carries the movement from point a to point B Quincy. There’s a guy that will do the cleanup, which is find the perfect line within the rough drawing. Someone like Glen Keane is an amazing animator.
02:15
Luke
He’s the guy who would have had to make the tos on. Many of the kind of favorite characters that Disney did in the nineties and Glen Keane went off to be, to do his own stuff, but he’s like the 2d Jedi legend. I knew you would have once you see Glen Gene’s work and he does stuff and the like, you recognize it immediately. Cause you’re just like, wow, because everything, life like breathe life into the drawings, but his drawings is super rough and he’ll do like one key head is like from this pose, something like that. It’s like, then some guy has to who’s super talents too. We’ll have to look at Glen King’s work and make sense of that motion and add something within it. Another guy has come in and then capture the exact energy in a perfect line. It’s just like, it’s like an explosion on the page.
02:59
Luke
It’s super rough and sketchy this beautiful animation I made this it’s a mad industry. The traditional animation is one of the most misunderstood art forms that I feel exists today because of talent. Anyway, so we could just segue off into,
03:15
Samuel
I was actually, I worked for Framestore good few years ago when I was being pushed. I was very similar to this multi-disciplinarian and I was kind of, I would get some of the key directors like Mike McGee,
03:30
Luke
Mike McGee. Yeah.
03:32
Samuel
He w we would work together and build little experiments and things like that. I would say very rudimentary kind of VR concepts and things like that were being bubbling at that point. Right. This is about 2009, maybe something like that. What were you doing at MPC that, cause we haven’t even touched on how your animation stuff went into the VR stuff. What, what were you doing in MPC that was, that kind of triggered this lust for VR?
04:04
Luke
Do you see didn’t trigger my last severe, I lost his word. I’m very careful to use. Cause last is consumption and consumption is moving from a particular energy, which is like ego-driven and he’s just like, I want to take you’re just, and I, I think VR comes from something that I want to share. A passion or there’s a lightness of joy. It’s a different, and anyway, that’s another conversation.
04:34
Samuel
Well, where was the spark then? Where did that.
04:38
Luke
Box fovea was United while I was meditating under in the woods for some time. I was sitting there trying to work out how to align purpose and passion and skillset and life. I thought I was at a crossroads and I thought the best way to figure it out. Sando tree and meditate for some time thrill, if a real. Yeah. Even I could take that one step further for three days as I was meditating in the woods, sitting there the same butterfly would come and would sit on my head. I was like, if this is not a sign, and then on the third day I had this in silence. I need to pee in this industry. At the time the industry didn’t really exist. That was super interesting because I knew nothing of VR, really, in all fairness, I just had a sense. I was like, I need to move.
05:27
Luke
I don’t know what to move. I need something to guide. And then this kind of insight came. It was like, you need to be in this. This is where it’s happening. This is where you go. I went to some, I was like, well, where do I go? What do I start? What I do? I was kind of Googling around and I saw a conference in Munich if a program is, and I was like, right, that looks kind of interesting. It was a VR conference. I went to the Munich Watson for the conference, didn’t understand a word. I knew nothing about programming languages, lots of developed people who are building these systems were mostly, it was math and code. I decide I need to be here anyway. I bumped into a guy called Cory inbox, who at the time we’d had a conference call, the old method with expo, which has now grown to be the biggest conference in the world for VR and AR.
06:09
Luke
In those days it was super low fee. It was very much driven towards this very kind of Peaky group of people who were developing the software. He started off in 2010 and I just, I saw him and I was like, I need to work. I has, I was also, again, like I was like, I had an insight that I needed to work with you. And he was like, okay. And.
06:31
Chris
Freaked out.
06:33
Luke
He just, for whatever reason, we started talking and then something, that I had been working real estate for some time. VR real estate seemed like a good space. I had this idea that maybe that was a good, low hanging fruit for me. Cause I worked in, I saw an opportunity. It just made sense. I was like, well, VR was the best way to showcase new developments and sell a plan. No one was doing it that time. I was. I saw his brand, I was like, man, your brand is super technical. Really inaccessible it’s awe expert, really dispels bore. You need to bring the, or into the experience. I want to help you rebrand this conference. So that was like the entry point. I started working for him for free initially, and then even, so I was like, I will just work for you. I was living in my office on, so for the time it was just a bit wild and I just, it just going with intuition really.
07:26
Luke
Just being like, trusting, like this is where I should go and this is how I should move.
07:31
Chris
With that innovation to try and rebrand, it, that’s very much the a marketing led initiative, I guess. Obviously we’ll get to your roles now, but like, did you have any experience in marketing and sales and branding at that point? Cause we’ve gone from being a, an a hand-drawn animator to meditating under a tree, to, rebranding a conference.
07:58
Luke
And selling real.
07:59
Chris
Estate and certainly real estate. I forgot about that. Yeah. There’s quite a lot of buildup going on here.
08:06
Luke
Good. I’m pleased at your beginning spiders, more and more drinking. Real estates was a segue. My family business is my father builds Alpine chalets and I, before I started working with him, I was working in immersive theater. So let’s give it some context. While I was animating, I used to love to go to, I used to hang out a lot at these squats in London, artists were taking of a buildings in London and just creating these awesome art experiences. There were young artists and it was rich. Somehow I got involved with these artists and they were doing these poetry, readings and performances in these squatted buildings in central London. I used to go hang out there. Through that process, I met some really interesting artists that were just operating a bit under the radar. I followed one artist to her. She was, she was actually at the time it was an old street.
08:58
Luke
One of these abandoned, well, it was, no, it was at the truman brewery, an old street back the day before it was even developed into anything. It was just this, it was, again, it was just like a building and go downstairs and it’s nothing there. There’s a few artists that were exhibiting their work at the time when old street was still kind of not so interesting, super interesting for a few and not so interesting for the most right. It’s kind of flipped out. Hadn’t been gentrified yet. Exactly. I saw as artists and I was like, wow, she’s amazing. She was doing this really awesome installation work. She was like 22. And I was like 26, 27. I just asked about what she was up to. She was like, I’m going to go to this protest site in Wales to become an activist with my first protest.
09:36
Luke
I feel that such a compelling idea. I was like, can I follow you? I’d like to make a film about that. I followed this, I put together a team and followed this girl to Wales and to make a documentary film about her life on this protest site and ended up spending six months living in this protest site and traveling around to all these other practice sites and the UK. We filmed about 50 hours of footage and then decided to create a documentary from the experience, which is called living with Atticus. They will live in tree houses and it was really magical this time. Did you hear out swampy? When I remember swampy, it was just off the swampy, but he was still hanging around these different protest sites, but some of them, some of these protest sites was so magical that because they’d been there for like nine years and people really built these communities.
10:20
Luke
Off-grid, there’s one place called nine ladies, which was in the peak district. If I remember it was like, it was a Woodland that was growing out of ancient stone quarry. That was also on ancient Roman ruin. It was kind of all mixed up and they were these protests. That’s going to live there to stop them from just to protect the forest. That from the quarry is the people who come to basically take stone. I don’t know what was going on, but people that lived there for so long that became a community that children who basically had only ever grown up in the woods that had no real connection to civilization. It was amazing. You’d find these really magical places around the UK that was so the kind of work outside of society. That was the first thing that really called me. I said, this is what I’m really interested in, but I didn’t have a name for it at the time because I come from quite a conservative background.
11:14
Luke
I wouldn’t say public. So I went to Harrow, right? I’m someone who went to a public school and it was kind of on an adventure to discover the world out of this bubble of bourgeoisie, actually. On that journey to kind of find myself and find out what the world is about. You just go on these kind of magical adventures to meet all these different types of people and just follow intuition I could keep going, but I maybe just stop here. There’s lots of beautiful stories around this couple and where that took me and the connection to a massive theater. I must’ve it because for me, unless it’s theater is really the segue to VR.
11:53
Chris
Ability to follow. What’s interesting. Follow your sense of adventure, I think was the wording you used seems to have taken you in a hell of a lot of different places.
12:03
Luke
Yeah, it does. It really does. That’s essentially kind of following your own curiosity, ,
12:10
Chris
So, I’d asked about the, what made you think that you could rebrand this conference that you’d seen this VR thing? So, you’d seen all of these things, you’ve got that creative background, but what made you think that you knew what people wanted to see from VR? I guess.
12:30
Luke
I didn’t know what people wants to see from via. I knew what I wanted to see from via, and for me, I knew VR represented other realities, other potentials, other dimensions. A lot of time people were trying to recreate like second life as a second life was for example, as a recreation of our world and in a virtual environment. For me, there’s nothing more tedious than someone making a s****y version of the real world in a virtual environment. I’m like, what? I just, I, and I’d also worked with plant medicine, like iowaska and other things back in 2011. I’d seen other dimensions had been revealed to me through these plant medicines. It was always kind of, there was an obvious relationship between kind of these other realities that we could experience through the five senses or beyond the five sentences and the potential of what VR could teach us or revealed to us.
13:26
Samuel
I was going to say, w was that like an intentional thing that, what were you looking for from the Iowasca experience? Were you looking for a new enlightenment or is that just by chance and that you, that led you on a journey?
13:39
Luke
In 2010, I had a nightclub, which was like a 1920s cabaret, burlesque immersive theater place in central London in bond street. I kind of got caught up with the nightlife and that took me on a bit of a s****y journey. Cause I, I lost the sense of what it was that I was doing initially. I was like, I create these magical spaces. I was like, I’m a nightclub and you kind of get lost in this world because it’s full. Lot of people like, wow, you get caught up in the ego of it. You know? I got caught up for a time in this story that I was just really cool and I made a nightclub and all these cool people were coming to me like Woody Harrison one day would come to my nightclub. Then, it’s just like, suddenly out of nowhere, you go, this really, you become cool and I’ve been in animation.
14:23
Luke
So I was kind of geeky. And then slowly I became very cool. That led me to an internal crisis of who am I, what am I doing? I ended up for a period giving up my creativity to work in real estate. Cause I had the, I had a family. It was like, what are you doing with all this creative Malachy you should be working with a family business and building a real estate empire. I joined samples and I studied like started from the bottom again in real estate training, having just come from building immersive theater experiences. Trying to please this idea of what I thought my family or I thought I should be doing because I’ve kind of fallen by my own. So I, I kind of got lost. I’d lost my way. I lost myself. I was at the time I was living with a very old friend who was working with plant medicine and she was taking trips to the Amazon and she was also hosting ceremonies at our home.
15:15
Luke
And, and she was like, oh, you’re very sweet, lovely. She like, oh, you should come along and do a plant medicine ceremony. I was like, okay, I had no idea it was elements. It was. So I was like, sounds cool. I went to this retreat at the London and it was very strange and everyone’s dressed in whites and I just compared to the diet kind of, prepared myself. That experience, I drank ask it for three days over three nights. That experience was fundamentally a total realignment. Let’s say it kind of pushed me back into my path. It was after that I was like, right. Things really started to shift actually. I was able to consolidate these two Wells that I couldn’t figure out the time, which was creativity and business. It’s actually, maybe they can work better together. That also kind of was what kind of led me towards virtual reality because that became more about really bringing spirituality to the world in a way that people, most people couldn’t conceptualize it cause it’s really about building new realities.
16:17
Luke
I was like, oh, VR really is about these other dimensions. And, and the plant medicine showed me the stuff. So that makes sense. That’s why it kind of came through with the meditation actually.
16:27
Chris
I ask is like a psychoactive drug essentially. Right. I can kind of see how there might be a connection between that and the virtual reality. That how you made the link or am I reading too much into that?
16:43
Luke
That’s exactly. I mean, it really is a psych Kevin Kelly. He says like virtual reality technologists, like the digital shame of the future.
16:53
Chris
Digital shame.
16:54
Luke
Yes, it is. It is the giving us these kind of gates gateways into new realities. Right. That there are my favorite speak on these topics. Jason Silva, you see these philosophical shot support and where he talks a lot about this space between psychedelics transhumanism, future technologies, impact technologies and the human condition and kind of schools this new paradigm. I think that we’re birthing into,
17:25
Samuel
I’m really curious to know now at this point, because you’ve approached VR from a very spiritual, very visionary kind of perspective. You’ve gone to this tech conference and correct me if I’m wrong, but code is not your bag. How do you then enter the world of VR with purely a visionary standpoint? Like what are you, what did you then offer to the kind of industry or the, I don’t know, talk me through what you did with this kind of this enlightenment around virtual reality, being such a powerful medium.
18:01
Luke
For the augmented world expo, I presented a vision which is much more transcendental and I put together, you could actually somebody on LinkedIn, I’ve shared it. If you go to the AWS as a documentary shed. That was really kind of making it much more about these other dimensions is other realities in 2014. He had kind of, he did his own branding. What, what I then did was where’s the low-hanging fruit with this new technology, how am I going to make money? The obvious one for me was helping to sell new developments or help developers sell off plan or communicate their offerings more effectively. It was really that simple and there were, and I was looking around and real estate working in real estate. What I realized is they were very old school, especially companies like samples. If you’re funding the samples, I worked with a head office in Berkeley square at the time.
18:58
Luke
I remember coming in and pitching them, these really creative ideas in the first few months I was there and being shut down because I realized how close people were to any type of innovation that might exist outside of what they were comfortable with. I eventually left real estate, I just thought this technology is going to innovate this industry in ways that haven’t been seen yet. Just, and so actually I was picked up by a company that was doing exactly that and together we’d started to build products for the space. My job was to go to lots of real estate conferences, like make them both exhibit new technologies and also to pitch to clients. I’d go and essentially look at use connect with developers and convince them of the value of building products in VR to help them sell and communicate their offerings more effectively. That was for residential commercial and retail.
19:55
Luke
We ended up working on a multi-billion dollar development, which is a whole replanning of a town called Bracknell. We built a virtual town, a million square foot and in VR and gamified it and various applications, all things from scratch, and then next thing you find yourself as in a room with 15 or 20 board members of two multi billion pound companies pitching them this new technology and kind of setting them off in suite. No one was doing that at the time. I mean, there was a few people that were moving in parallel with us because when there’s one, when someone has an idea somewhere, that you can be sure that someone in the world’s having the same idea at the same time. The hive mind, it is beautiful to know how connected we are, because it’s like, be sure someone else is bursting that same idea and same time, because we’re all connected.
20:43
Luke
Like what are those possums? Or anyway, you get one second.
20:48
Chris
Does that give you an impetus to move faster than when you.
20:51
Luke
Move too fast?
20:53
Chris
I think we can tell that from the interview so far, I mean the amount of stuff you’ve done up until about being, what about 26 seems to be quite a colossal?
21:03
Luke
I told you that I was pitching a company called me mask in 2018 where I said that were going to brand face masks or, Hey, this isn’t serious and we’re going to brand them so people can become walking billboards and you can put like Colgate with a big smile. The companies would, you’d give them weight for free at tube stations and bus stops and train stations, wherever, and companies would pay for these masks. Essentially you’d take a commission because you were basically creating walking billboards. I started doing that with extinction rebellion and people thought I was a f*****g nutcase. And then I just thought, f**k it. I’m out of London because this is all going to be messy. Again, two years later, everyone’s walking around with bloody masks. It was just interesting that I’m not hosting my own job, but there are ways to just get insights.
21:51
Luke
I can talk about how you find trends. How do you follow transport or be at the front of a trend?
21:57
Chris
Well, I think we should have known that there was something coming with the pandemic because we had been preparing for pandemics. Then, I think around 2018, everyone kind of given up and went, yeah, there’ll never be a pandemic it’s supposed to happen every a hundred years, but it hasn’t been one since 1918. Let’s not bother.
22:14
Luke
It’s. It’s true. I it’s. Yeah.
22:17
Chris
Good. That you were that far ahead of the game. Did it, did you manage to bring it back? Like as went into the pandemic or a,
22:22
Luke
I just shelved the project after? Well, cause I just, I didn’t want to live in the city in that energy, maybe a chance to make a million or 10 million or off a business around mosques and yes, potentially you can capitalize that in a big way, but the other question is what do we compromise about ourselves? Like what are we giving up to have that type of success? It the success that we meant to have is that success? For me, it’s a clear, no, I didn’t want to be in London during a pandemic. I didn’t want to be around people and that energy, not even it’s the fear that narrative that’s so toxic.
23:03
Chris
That’s interesting. So, I mean, let’s bring it right up to date then. XR applied, talk to us about that and how we got here.
23:12
Luke
Let me go to XR. Applied XR applied is a company that I’m consultants consulting for they’re based in France and in Toronto. Currently my process with them is to find clients and also to develop new business strategies. One of the business projects that I’m bringing to the table is this mixed martial arts VR experience. Just to explain what that is for me and why I, for me, that’s a multi-billion dollar business, right? It’s the future of MMA. What happened in 2013, I was developing a concept for the immersive combat Federation, which was live combat sport the most effective because I’ve been very heavily involved in it. I was working in real estate and doing that on the side. I put together a whole vision and pitch for this project, but we never moved forward with this project for various reasons. So I shelved the idea.
24:05
Luke
I was like, right, I’m just shelving this for now because it’s not the time. When I was at web summit a few weeks ago, George who is the UFC champion was on stage talking with unity about a new technology called Metta cost. Mehta cost is essentially the technology that was missing from this project that I wanted to develop. I connected with and I’m currently in discussions with his agent as to how we can bring this experience to life, and have him as a, a, the face of this concept and presenting a project or an opportunity like that to your company. They’re like, wow, this is the future of mixed martial. It’s just very key. When you look at the pieces, you’re like this, plus this plus, this could potentially be this. And I know it, they know it. There’s a tremendous amount of value in an opportunity like that.
25:06
Luke
The question is, how did it happen? The way I’m telling the story it’s synchronicity and flow, right? I didn’t have a plan to meet Josep share conference, right? It’s to get backstage, to talk to him, you’re talking about getting through five layers of security and you don’t get to go backstage on a stage of 40,000 people at web summit to meet the people that were on the stage. Right. It just because I was an attending to the question, how did I get backstage? That’s, what’s really interesting because as I’m observing myself, getting backstage going, I need to connect with this guy. This is the way these things happen is wild. I’m looking at all the security and there are five checkpoints between me and getting that. Each one is controlled by two giant security guys. I’m like, if it’s meant to be, I’m getting through the security and I’m meeting with this guy and his universe moving this right now.
25:59
Luke
Yes. Let’s go, boom, boom. That’s my experience and the why does it, and then you ask, well, how do you book like that? How do you move like that? And that’s another conversation. That’s the most interesting conversation for me.
26:12
Chris
How, in that case, did you get through the security? When you were there, what was it that made you be in the crowd and went, I’ve got an idea and I’m going to go and speak to that guy about it. Cause it must’ve been a couple of things there, right?
26:30
Luke
How far down the rabbit hole do you guys want to go? I’m already in the rabbit hole. So I didn’t have a plan. It was a Thursday, I didn’t know, on that particular day. Just so between you speak very candidly. I didn’t know that on the day that was going to be the outcome of the deck. I have a project that shelved, I know what that project can be. I have a sense of what I would like it to achieve, but it was only when I was going through the kind of menu of who the speakers and what was happening on the day. I saw Georgetown, Pia, I saw unity. I saw the conversation and it was like, these are the guys that I need to connect to because this is the missing piece for this other project that I want to build. By the way the person hasn’t happened.
27:12
Luke
It might not happen. I’m just speaking to you about time, where I’m at in this moment right now. That’s all I really know, and this is how I respond.
27:18
Chris
So that’s great. Cause like a lot of people, are able to put these ideas together. They have the ideas, they can put the jigsaw together in their mind, but then how did you go and execute on it? Because I’m interested in how you managed to get through the simulators, the security, and then pitch your idea.
27:35
Luke
I just walk. As you’re walking, it’s like that moment of like a second before a second office, he wouldn’t have turned away or someone for example came out as particular point looked at me, he goes, where are you going? I would be like, I’m going to go meet with this particular person. I just like, oh, come with me. He just walked me through two people and another person just opened and it was just, the timing was like, everything is moving and it’s like slow Mo you’re like, okay, so this store opens. And then, and I’m just moving. I’m like, if I’m meant to go, I’ve surrendered. I’m like, if I meant to get through this, I’m getting through this. I’m not doing, I’m not running the show. I’m not running this. This is happening through me or not, but you’re watching your movie unfold in real time as you’re moving.
28:18
Chris
Have I think, you’re incredibly positive person clearly and you’ve definitely got this way about yourself, of being able to, go through life and make connections and have success. Have you, have you ever crashed and burned as ever just cause you talk about it and not working, but has it ever completely gone from Monday.
28:43
Luke
When I was 30? For sure. I mean, again, it’s like, how do you look at the crash and bam, like what is a crash in bam? Like depressed can also be deep rest. Right? Everything has its other side, like the ying yang. Right? You can, yeah, you’ve got the dark and light, but in darkness, there’s light and in light there’s dots, it’s both. Again, it’s about how do we see like there is with every truth. There is, there is a spectrum.
29:10
Chris
Yeah. I think I saw a clip of, I think it was Jim Carey was talking about deep rest actually as a thing, it’s really interesting that you brought that out. Like, how do you recover from that? You get into a real low point it’s, you’ve completely, hit the wall. How do you build yourself back up?
29:29
Luke
If the question is, did you see yourself going towards the wall in the first place? Because there’s usually some clear signs that should be guiding you before you crash. Then, so number one, and what is your framework like if you’ve got a framework that kind of catches you when you fall too much, this way, or far too much this way into a, too much of a high or too much of a low right. Both are dangerous. Both being like, too much like, oh my God, like so nice. You’re like lost in the bliss or lost in the depression, both the states and try and keep that balance. That balance between both is really for me, the safe space, not to be pulled to either extremes and get lost thing is we get lost by, we go towards things that are, and we kind of shun things that are uncomfortable, but actually discomfort is great.
30:15
Luke
Cause it’s breaking as well. Right. Make it fun, comfortable. Again, it’s like if things get to a point where we hit a depression, there’s probably been a ton of things that we’ve not been dealing with up to that point for us to fall into that space. The depression is the final smack by life. Say, shift or break, we’ll stop. We’ll wake up the burnout, but you have signs along the way. And if you’re looking, you’ll see them. If you’re tuning in, you’ll see them every moment, every day. It’s always there.
30:42
Samuel
Did I miss hear you in the middle of that? Or did you say.
30:44
Luke
Fun? Comfortable, fun, comfortable. Yeah. Make uncomfortable. That’s.
30:48
Samuel
Cracking. I’ve never heard that before.
30:51
Luke
It’s not mine. I had someone else that I thought it was brilliant as well. It’s like that’s of course make things that are uncomfortable. Again, the stories we have around things, but not usually the reality. It’s really getting to the root of things and look, words are great like that. Like a word can have many Hebrew is beautiful because Hebrew always has a reverse to everything. There’s always a duality and that’s true. If it’s one man’s poisons, another man’s medicine and vice versa. The question is, how do you move with that? Things that I’m like, I wouldn’t wish anyone to have to go through that experience and feel those things, but that’s also unseen from a stuck place, how I then moved to something else. I understand the springboard of the full to the rise and the rise of it’s that it’s life, it’s both.
31:36
Samuel
Clarity to what you were saying. From your observations, it seems like that is obvious that this stuff has come so naturally. Where do you feel people are going wrong in terms of, maybe things aren’t going their way. How can they, how do you feel like they can maybe reach this enlightenment or discover this how to navigate their life in a more well as you describe it, the way that you’re describing it.
32:01
Luke
Speaking for myself, whereas when is it going so wrong for me, it’s when I got caught up in my story, in my belief, the mind, right? The mind, what is the mind and what is our relationship to mind and how do we navigate the voices the identities we go wrong, because we’re very caught up in our identity and the identity, the belief systems we have. Sometimes we have bad programs like a computer with a virus, software site, if you’ve uploaded a faulty virus and trauma does this, we have things that are unconditionally from a very young age through this life or past lives that we have adopted as our truth or a person. That usually influences us unconsciously to behave or respond to certain stimuli in a particular way. Sometimes that takes us into a brick wall, but that brick wall is also from a certain vantage point or repositioning a way of seeing.
32:58
Luke
Everything that hurts us is also there to reveal something, because it’s really what is this, the sentences, but ways to navigate this reality. We’re trying to constantly find a way to find a pot and create paths. Most people follow paths that have been walked, but we, if were to create our own path and find a way that works for us, we have to become much more in tune with the self ourselves, the self. We have to be able to understand, firstly, what is the self? We have to ask these deeper questions, because we don’t ask these questions. We will get a crash into wolves the whole time, because we’re trying to navigate an unchartered territory and move in a way that isn’t mapped out in the physicality. So we’re like, what is my path? If it’s not to be a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, an accountant, or blah.
33:46
Luke
How do I know what’s true for me? I don’t know. How do I trust when things look super bleak? How do I make those transitions? Where those bridges between one reality, another reality and hold true and stay safe. Like, even though I haven’t got a clue where I’m going, but how do we do that? How do I navigate the noise in my mind, the limiting beliefs we wake up in the morning, you suck, you can’t do it. No one loves you. You’re not worthy all these things, all these ideas that we, how do we navigate that? Like comparison, how do we distill truth from the lenses of illusion that constantly kind of veiling reality from us and what is reality? There’s depths and there, but there’s less and less of an endless explore. There is a truth and one talks about karma or tick one correction or sole purpose.
34:36
Luke
Like it’s, what is the journey of this reality? What are we here for? And what are we unraveling? Where is it taking us? What’s the end goal and how does it connect to all humanity? Actually, is it for myself or is it part of something much greater? Ultimately I Alaska, and if you’ve done, or other kinds of deep, insightful meditations will show that everything comes back to one, we’re all connected. We know that on a molecular level, there is nothing is separate and everything. I don’t know, tell me level everything’s connected, right? There’s no space between things it’s only through perception. Do we start to believe that things are separate and we identify stories or names, a table, chair, microphone, person, all these things, but these are constructs. These are things that we’ve overlaid onto reality. We have to start to find a way of deconstructing the lens from which we’ve been taught to see like a baby.
35:23
Samuel
Well, on that note, I add, I’ve kind of follow up question, which is left field from an already very left field conversation that worked we’re normally accustomed to, but then I have this as a very well formed idea right now. As it revolves around consciousness and the development from childhood to adulthood, and I believe somewhere along the line, something happens where we lose what is so pure about being a child that curiosity, that to be truly yourself. I, I w I, the most basic example I can give as I was watching some kids play boys and girls, right. They were on the ground, they were beating each other up. And, you put, you look at adults doing that and you think that’s crazy more specifically, you’d look at a female doing that and think, oh, being rough and tumbling around and whatever, you’d be crazy.
36:16
Samuel
Not obviously not. I think there’s sites like that on the internet. You can go and look at it. No, but I mean, there’s a purity to that. You don’t a boy doesn’t care. If they’re a boy or a girl doesn’t care, they’re just going to do whatever they feel comfortable doing. Somewhere along the line, as they grow up, something happens. I feel like consciousness this bit, this being, this thing that you’re speaking about right now, I think maybe there’s a connection there where suddenly you become part of the world and, and the interconnectivity that somehow brings about a horrible ego that prevents us from being who we really are. We, that’s where we run into walls. That’s where we find difficulties and things like that. Do you, I mean, do you have any thoughts or ideas around that concept?
37:07
Luke
The first thing that pops is my ego is not horrible. Right? It’s our friend. It’s also that to support us, there’s a purpose of this reality that was documented, right? It’s, you can use the same comparison with the Adam and Eve story, right? Adam and Eve were like the baby in the garden of Eden, like totally pure and innocent. And they will without shame. They were just rolling around being naked and cool.
37:30
Samuel
Cooler, naked,
37:31
Luke
Naked, and everything. Right. This snake, this tent, which is the medic also rocked up and said, eat from the tree of good and evil of knowledge, duality, right. Perception, creating the sense of I, the separate self, right? So they do. These shame, they were naked and they kind of fell. They fell from this heightened state, which is Trent. So mind is the realm of duality. Mine is great because it helps us navigate, but it exists in a sense of separation perceptions. The way the brain is set up, right. It observes everything from a particular position. My positioning, I would say, and I see everything in relation to me, heart. The mind heart is that unity is that love that’s expansive. It goes beyond labels and identity and experiences, expansive states of like feeling connectedness, when you fall in love, but we still, the eye places it on two things.
38:22
Luke
The distortion in that relationship is the way that we place love outside of the self, through the experience of the other, falling in love, loving something, those states that they are outside, but actually they’re not outside that’s something that we experienced the, we expand beyond the self. That, but the journey of understanding, there’s a point to this reality. The point to this reality is one. If, if you look at the great sages or any of the ancient texts and ancient wisdom teachings, they will always talk about what is the purpose of this reality? What are we here for? What is this learning? It’s also the universe becoming self-aware through the ego, through the perceived self, through learning all the knowledge, and then transcending that. Because if you are, if otherwise there is no point to existence, if there was no game, if there was no ego to unravel, there was a point to unfold, something to see, to learn everything it’s like they said, the unit is essentially the universe becoming aware itself through the infant lenses of seeing for the infant perceptions of reality, only to translate it’s come back to the one.
39:30
Luke
If this dimension has, it’s like a game, right? There’s that your life is somewhere like a leveling up constantly unraveling, unfolding somewhere. I, and so it’s a different language, right? It’s, it’s a very old way of seeing, but also for this generation, it’s a very new way of seeing to change the way you relate to this self, to be totally cool with having an ego and to realize that this is something that needs to still be overcome to come to transcend it, coming back from the two to the one, right. We can talk endlessly about that. But I think that’s a stop that.
40:09
Samuel
I guess what I’m saying is that I feel like we there’s something along our path that sets off sets us off track.
40:17
Luke
Somehow it’s called life. This pure thing is born into this world. There’s like, total curiosity. And then life happens. Parents happen to stimuli happens, and you learn, you just like you by being in the physical, it’s just cause you’re brought into the physical dimension where so physical things you get brought up. So you start to associate with things. That’s, doesn’t make the best parenting in the world can save you from this. Like, this is just this reality. It happens to everyone. They say, they f**k you up your mom and dad. They, there’s that poem about how parents it’s no one’s fault. It’s just the game. It’s the way it’s set up. Everyone goes through it. Everyone has to unravel this story in this lifetime or past lifetimes. But it’s like to what end, why? And then you can. It’s like, some people say there’s no point to this existence.
40:59
Luke
If you’ve got deeper and say, there is a purpose to life, what is it? And how does it work? You just go and study some of the great avatars who have written extensively on this in many different lineages, in many different practices, be it from the Vedas to the capitalists, to non-duality, to the Buddhist, it’s all there, right? It’s, it’s.
41:21
Chris
Bringing these worlds together then virtual reality. The reality, I suppose, whether it’s, various different perceptions of that, how do you foresee humanity changing? I suppose, as we head into a virtual world, because it’s going to become more and more prevalent.
41:39
Luke
Very interesting, because then you’ve got, I see this, everything will eventually in my, from my limited understanding, come back to one and this, then we can sweat. What does that mean? But what is very interesting? There’s a lot, there’s a big movement towards introspection and the inner of us, which is looking within, and there’s a big movement towards the algebra. It’s just like man merging with machine transhumanism like that. Like what happens when we merge with the internet? Like what, like placing the microchip and the mind it’s just become like, so we transcend our limitations with technology. We transcends our limitations with spiritual evolution and exploring the realms of consciousness. Right. I see those two paths of being really interesting right now. What’s what’s going to happen.
42:25
Chris
You w were you surprised or excited about the recent announcements that came via Mr. Zuckerberg and his plan for VR and all that things?
42:36
Luke
Not surprised at all? It, for me, it feels like it’s just a natural, just the next step. It’s the next steps, because that’s where the energy is. There’s so much energy and it’s like, people just chasing that energy and they’re just moving with it. Right. Even though we will still ready player one, ready player, one was very clear, like, don’t do this. Everyone, we should do this thing because this, because you can’t, you just pull it’s, something’s pulling us towards this unfolding. So somewhere it’s totally okay. It’s completely okay. Because that’s where we’re going as a species.
43:11
Chris
W when do you think that, when do you think the tipping point will be? Because I think everybody is starting to become more savvy. Let’s say of having a virtual world. I mean, for example, we’re recording this via zoom. People are more, people are aware of zoom now than they ever have been. More people are going online than they ever have been. I think people are starting to explore the VR world a bit more as well. I mean, we are having conversations about VR in office spaces, because people might not be going back into physical offices in the same way as they were before the pandemic. When do you think the tipping point is going to be when things become significantly more virtual? Like, do, can you foresee that?
43:54
Luke
I mean, within the next few years, I think 2000, when it was predicted, the current industry is worth 36 billion right now. By 2025, it’s going to be worth 500 and something billion. Right. It’s just that growth. I look at what’s happening. How many players are moving into the, the metaverse space. Like I see the amount of men of us experts in my LinkedIn feed has grown exponentially within the last year. Everyone’s like, when did they ever become an expert on the, of us? It doesn’t really exist yet, but it’s just like, it’s because everyone that is where the money, because Facebook has called it. And so as many other companies,
44:33
Chris
There’s, there’s definitely a correlation, throughout history, I think between number of experts and buzzwords, there’s a, as soon as the term there’ll be an expert in it.
44:44
Samuel
Well, it might not, I wouldn’t call it a Siri, but my understanding or belief was that actually the metaverse as actually something has existed for quite a while. Maybe not in this all encompassing place, but there’s this duality between the virtual world and a physical world and all the rest of it. Yourself are involved in VR and all these stuff as is happened over the last 10, 15 years, but it’s, it feels to me now. I’m asking to be corrected if you feel so at first to me, now that there’s a term for it, people are saying, oh, that’s what this thing that we’ve been doing for the last 10 years is, and then putting their name to it. That’s what it feels like to me.
45:27
Luke
It’s, it’s the commercial viability of it that has made it. So package is the packaging, right? We can really hold it as something I feel. Now is when it’s really under the scalability of something that we can really tangibly understand and relate to and make work and relate it to business. At large,
45:51
Samuel
We’ve explored so many different things tonight, and you seem to have a lot of teachings, a lot of theories, philosophies, and things that you’ve learned. What do you believe is your message to the world?
46:02
Luke
The first thing that pops into my mind is trust yourself, trust in certainty, you can come into a space of trust, more trust, which means that we move through fear, which without, when we have trust and certainty, we stopped being afraid. And that’s really important. Fear is also connected to uncertainty, and that makes us reactive. If we’re in trust and we have certainty, then we’re more proactive. That’s the daily practice of finding trust when we can’t see the other side, but trusting and knowing that this is something that’s guided, this is a huge one, because if we can just bring trust that we move in a different energy, it’s a much softer, much more elevated energy, and it already removes a lot of chaos from reality. I think that’s a good one to end on.
46:49
Chris
Nice. Nice,
46:52
Samuel
Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Luke. That was incredible.
46:56
Luke
Let’s talk to you too. Thank you. Nice one guys. All the best.
