Rainn Wilson

speaker

3,063 appearances 12 recordings 7 series first heard Jul 2024 last heard 7 Jul

Rainn Wilson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.

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Know Thyself · E131 - Rainn Wilson: Comedy, God & Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution · 21 Jan 2025 podcast

So I think getting right with God is less about any kind of like accounting. You know, get right with yourself. Get right with your own heart. Get right with your own conscience, you know. Get right with your resentments and your remorse. Clean your side of the street. But to get right with God is to just tune in that God is just, wants to just give everyone gigantic hugs all the time.

That's such an important question. I truly believe that's one of the top three most important questions that anyone working in this space can be asking. because of the mental health epidemic, and especially with young people, there is a disconnect between pain and suffering and life and resilience.

And when you have a deeper understanding of the purpose of suffering and misfortune and tests and difficulties, it can give you such a greater resilience to live a much more full, deep, and vibrant life, especially for young people undergoing mental health issues. What is the purpose of our physical reality?

Let's just suppose, put all your skepticism out the window, and let's just say that there is pure, beautiful, cosmic source understanding, light beyond time and space, infinite, and that we'll call it God, and this God wants what's absolutely best for us. Why does this God put seven, eight billion of us into this physical universe, into these flesh suits for 70, 80, 90, 100 years?

Why does this happen? You know, in a certain way, this must be the perfect soul-growing laboratory Otherwise, it wouldn't have been created. Again, we're taking the supposition that there is this all-encompassing, beautiful, loving light, and this is just the beginning of a journey of great continuation. So, what is the purpose of our physical reality? It is... to struggle and grow.

We're here to struggle and grow. This is why oftentimes atheists say, well, I don't believe in God necessarily, but I can understand that we might be an avatar inside of a video game. This might have a meta construct element to it. And when we die, we wake up outside of this kind of 3D hologram reality. Because video games are kind of a great metaphor for being a human being on planet Earth.

You struggle, you suffer, you have limited lives, you beat the beast monster and you overcome and you hop from ledge to ledge and you drive your car here without crashing or whatever. to move forward. And this is what it is to be a human being. And there are some terrible tests out there that I wouldn't wish on anyone. God, one can only guess at God's infinite wisdom.

It's one of the big kind of metaphysical and philosophical questions of all time. If there is an all loving God, why is there so much suffering on the planet? But for the majority of us, again, our suffering and our tests and our difficulties are the things that we end up being the most grateful for.

And that's because they've allowed us to mature and grow and grow wiser and grow closer to God and develop those spiritual qualities we talked about before, like kindness and generosity and joy and humility and honesty and That's what this 3D construct world is for. We've got a short, you know, there's a metaphor in the Baha'i faith.

There's some mystical writing that it's like, this physical world is like a banquet hall. And it's a sparrow flying through the banquet hall and it flies through and it bumps against the windows and it eats some grapes and some pie and it flies through and it flies on out. And that's life, is a sparrow flying through a banquet hall. I just love that image for some reason.

I'm not exactly sure why, but that's... That's what we're doing here. That's the purpose of physical reality. And, you know, the Buddha said, life is suffering. You can also translate it as there is suffering. We are in suffering. And guess what? There's a way out of suffering from non-attachment. And we can be freed from so much of our own suffering.

And I will say that if humanity were able to put aside war... and greed and materialism and nationalism and one-upsmanship and kind of the most grotesque aspects of capitalism and consumerism. And we were able to come together in harmony and service on the planet and put all of that technology that's currently used to be building drones to be fighting cancers and diseases together.

we could absolutely feed everyone on the planet. We could be living a very healthy, beautiful, amazing life. We're not there yet. You talked about humanity being in its turbulent adolescence, which is very true. And Humanity is going to head to rehab. You know, we're going to have to fall down hard and split our head open and there's going to be some suffering.

And hopefully we come out on the other side, you know, having some wisdom, some serenity and some focus.

That's so well said.

Yeah, the forces that you're referring to and you mentioned before is, again, another idea I stole from some Baha'i. I borrowed from some Baha'i ways of thinking. But I just love the way this phrase sums up so much of what's happening in our contemporary life. There are forces of integration, right? bumping up against working alongside forces of disintegration.

Both of these things are happening at the same time. Our political system is disintegrating. It's becoming more and more disunified and corrupt as it goes along. And at the same time, more and more people are searching, are questing, are looking for connection, are coming together more and more.

social injustices that were just a given a few decades ago are now questioned, you know, at the grassroots. And this is another thing that's hard for young people dealing with a mental health crisis to see. They only see the disintegration and they're not looking towards the integration. Or they're confused that there are two forces going on at the same time. We like things black and white.

Like, oh, the world is a mess and it's all fucked up and it's all falling apart. Right? Yes. The world is also beautiful. People are coming together. There are amazing things happening. There's incredible organizations and movements and communities that are being built at the same time. So, how do we hold in our awareness both of these things happening at the same time?

This is a... It's very much in the Hindu tradition. I wish I was more well-versed, but I'm thinking about, like, Maya in a world of illusion. I'm thinking about, like, gods of chaos and gods of peace. And, you know, all of these forces kind of swirling at the same time. And... Our job is to align ourselves with the forces of integration. So where do you find that?

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