You Are the Jewel: Indra’s Net, Tarot Wisdom & Remembering You Are Divine

In this episode of Life of Love, Julie welcomes back spiritual teacher and author Indra Rinzler to celebrate the release of his new book, Indra’s Net: A Seeker’s Guide to the Human Experience.

Drawing on a 2,000-year-old Hindu–Buddhist teaching, Indra shares the vision of a cosmic net of light with a jewel at every crossing — each jewel reflecting every other jewel. It’s a powerful reminder that you are not separate or ordinary. You are divine, you are special, you are a king or queen of connection.

Together, Julie and Indra explore:

• The story behind Indra’s spiritual name and what it means to be “king on the inside”
• How the book is structured into 78 themes / cards with stories, experiences, practices and affirmations
• Identity vs. essence, and the pain of believing “I am what I do”
• Indra’s connection to Babaji and Yogananda, and the guidance to “stop writing” to finish the book
• The “random walk” bridge in India, tarot as a map of consciousness, and learning to trust life’s apparent chaos
• Prosperity consciousness, perfect joy, and living from the heart, one moment at a time

Indra's Book: 

https://amzn.to/47RoDbx

Transcript

0:06

Hello dear friends and welcome to Life of Love where we gather each week to explore how Life of Love is hitting us today with our curious open hearts. And I'm just delighted to be in this space today. We're bringing back Indra, Indra Riesner, He was on the podcast a couple of years ago. So he's coming back. So I'm excited to get started, but first I'm going to set our intention and get in our space. And I welcome you if you're able to close your eyes. If you're not, just get into your heart in a peaceful breath. thank you, thank you, creator, God, goddess, universe for the synchronicity, for bringing us back together like this. I am humbled and honored by the resources that have been provided. for me to produce this content, to have this community, and to bring hearts together that wish to soften in the ears that wish to hear. This is a special time for me to create space and Indra has been such a great influence. He's been in a spiritual journey. He's been on a spiritual journey of enlightenment and exploration and curiosity for his whole life. And so his bringing together all this knowledge for us in a wonderful book he's birthed. um is just my honor and I honor his path. I honor his connections and the ability to find peace and and and the idea that we can have these tools that can lead us to answers which we seek and so I'm just calling forth my guides. I'm welcoming Indra's guides to collaborate as we bring forth this message for the highest good for We're bringing together heaven and earth and mother Gaia to join us in this creation as it supports humanity and our caring for our dear mother earth and the energies around us as we honor we honor this light grid that we're all a part of and so and so it is and I thank you thank you thank you. Indra, thanks for being on Life of Love. I'm so happy to reconnect with you. It's wonderful to see you Julie. Thank you so much for having me come on again Well, you've been busy, right? You've written this book. I have a book coming out today. Yes, this Thursday, November 20th, is so exciting. that has been prescribed. Yes. And so we aligned at this perfect timing and I was so happy you reached out. So the first time I met you, we never got into how you received your name. And when I saw the name of your book, I was like, this is about his spiritual going to get to catch the fish, the sustenance of life and share this. And I had no idea the depth of your spiritual name. I just would be honored if you'd share a little bit of that and how you receive that spiritual name because I think it's a building block of this whole conversation and how you came to write this book. Okay, so the book's name is Indra's Net. And my spiritual name is Indra, so there's the combination. And while it is also my net, the fact is that Indra's Net is a 2000 year old concept given to us from the Hindu and the Buddhist. And I was given the name by a spiritual teacher of mine. And they said that Indra was the king of the gods. And I said, I'm not very kingly. And they said, be king on the inside. Don't worry about being king on the outside. Be king of the inside. And so I said, well, yeah, okay, I can do that. What a great anchoring point. my goodness. so I wanted something easy to say and that's, you know, that's the name that came down and this was this was almost 30 years ago. I love that foundation. uh anyone who listens to my show knows that I talk about this grid of light. And I am not skilled or versed in Hinduism or Buddhism. adore I've read the I'm going to butcher the name and interpretation of the Upanishads The Bhagavad Gita, the... It's, part of the Hindu Hindu tradition, But it's, it's a study that the spiritual teachers did in the wilderness and, and this man interpreted it as he grew up Indian, he has a physician in the West. And he went back to learn about healing through his heritage, which he had left and went back. So that East-West connection, I adore that because I've never been to India, but I've been pulled to things from and of India. And so I never heard of this net, the Indra's net, but I have visions of it when I meditate this grid around the earth that... That you that you you met it you you saw that before you heard the title Okay, yeah, well it's a yeah, go ahead well, I opened your email and I remember I responded, I'm like, yes, yes, yes. Because the net, the net, it's just like part of something I'm, obviously I'm connected to it, but consciously I'm connected to it. So that resonated with me so much and I never thought about the jewels. And so if... If you could describe the jewels and how that fits into what you're talking about, I just, love the parallel there. Okay, so Indra was the king of the gods and being king of the gods in the universe, he had a net and this net covered the entire universe and everywhere that the fibers of the net would cross, there would be a faceted jewel hanging. And the idea of the faceted jewel is that it would reflect everything, including all the other jewels. And so the concept of Indra's net is one of interconnectedness, that everything is connected, that there is no isolation. And so in the book, which is composed of 78 themes, 78 short stories with leveling up with a next step and an affirmation for each one, they are, they are in totality, they are the spiritual path. They are the lessons that we need to learn. They are the teachings that we have. And while there are more, the idea that this is enough to get you very well grounded in the spiritual path. that's the, I suppose that's the point of the book. I mean, I can't say, you know, I didn't have a purpose. other than the expressing of it. It didn't have a major focus other than expressing it. And it told me what it wanted to be. It was through me, not from me. And so that's the way I interpret it. But you as a reader, it's interesting. I was a book publisher for 10 years in the last century. And so I knew going into this process that everybody makes a book theirs. That I used to tell the authors that... that the illustrators are going to make it their book, that the printers are going to make it their book, that the designers are going to make it their book, that the readers are going to make it their book. so while I could still get stuck in that a little bit from this side, I did have that experience before. And really, it's up to the readers to tell me, I know what the book is for me, but I don't know what it is for you. And that's the openness of this gift. is for people to get out of it what they do. Mm hmm. And, and that's how it hit me. was like, I felt the wisdom traditions that you have sought and learned and lived through spirituality. It's not the religious part doesn't come over. It's the spirituality and then the the melding of Western Eastern Buddhist Hindu you talk about the Bible you talk about it's just encompassing. And so it's, like a melding of your, of your spiritual seeking into this very potent, I mean, every, every chapter, you could take it to so many different levels, and, be sparked by a concept or, and I found myself I, for example, when I was reading about the, the hugger, that woman, Indian woman who has hugged over how many million people? Gosh, have like, the, she's amazing. And I did, I interviewed someone on my podcast it's going to be like four episodes ago, but she went across America hugging. And so to read about this whole nother level and, and so I, Of course, I stopped reading your book. I went to YouTube and looked up Amma and I was just like, my gosh, then I went to her website. So it's like, wherever, like you said, wherever you want it to take you is where you can go. And that's, and I'm a curious reader and a curious, I like to dive deep in things that is like, oh, that's pretty cool. And to reread. So I just want to give people an idea how, how it's set up. So you introduce the topic, and then it's a beautiful story, whether it's your story, or someone else's, like Amma the hugger. And then, or it's a parable or metaphor, a beautiful story to link the idea to the concept. And then, and then words. sorry, it's the Experience. The experience, sorry, thank you. So the experience are words. And so you as a reader, you can go and look at those words and say, well, yeah, I felt that emotion a lot. Is it tied to this concept of this, this spiritual concept that maybe I could embody a little more, I could be curious about this. Because if I'm feeling the positive or the, I don't want to say positive or negative, if I'm feeling the high frequency of the emotion, because because there's all kinds of words on the spectrum. And I love how you included Hawkins scale of consciousness in here. It's just like, so you can look at the scale of consciousness, the frequency of that feeling, if it's high frequency or low frequency, and figure out how to get out of misery with this concept. And then the action step and the affirmation. So it's, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful actions, stepped insight, wherever, whatever you feel like you can go to that day, maybe you just want to acknowledge meant that you feel this way. And that's it's being heard. So that's it's just it was it's beautiful. And I'm reading it. And at one point, I started crying because I'm like, gosh, I really thought I had a handle on this. And I'll have to tell you it was it had I was like, this one hit. the living flow, experiencing identity, that one made me cry because there's a lot, there's a lot there because, you know, so many times where identity is what, how we show up in the world and how others see us. And if you're not feeling seen, if you're, you know, and you get tied up in that idea that you are what you do. And, and it's something that I, I'm always striving to be the best person I can be. but also coming back to the idea that it's for me, it's not for that identity. I am what I am, I'm not what I do. And I struggle with that a lot, because I want everyone to be happy and I wanna show up and it's something I really have to consciously look at. So when I read those words and your action steps, I'm like, this is really heavy. And I had to take a break. I had to take a break because I'm like. I'm still working on this. But you feel held with it. really, the reader feels held if you're willing to be held. Yes, beautiful. Thank you. It's wonderful to get your feedback. Yes, each each each theme or chapter or card or has a picture. It has a caption and then it has the experience, is which is the writing 600 to a thousand word. You could call it a blog post or a little short story. And some of them are. Some of them are wisdom teachings and some of them are my personal experiences and some of them are the ancient teachings and some of them are totally made up and uh imaginary. And one of them is a day in the life, is, you know, has, you know, just the flow of the day and how perfect that is and all the lessons we learn in a day. And it's, Each one is powerful, but together they, I do believe that they really tell a really interesting story. And the book, the book can be used, it can be opened and read wherever you open and it can be read cover to cover. read it covered, I've read it cover to cover when I do editing in it and I'm always appreciative of how flowy that it is and how well it works uh that way. And even at the end, which isn't really what you may not have gotten to, but even the end, is not really, it's not an end, but you somehow it ends the book. it was really interesting. had written these, I'd written about 85 of these themes. And when I decided to put them into a structure of a tarot deck, and it isn't... The traditional tarot, it's traditional tarot in the sense of what each card means, but it is not traditional tarot in the sense of, you know, the themes and the way that we work at it normally is not what I picked up on. I picked up on the esoteric meaning of each of the cards. And so I had 85 themes and I started picking a theme for each of the cards. And I was amazed that in 85 themes, I'd written one for each of the cards. And there was one theme that I had, that had always passed over. And it turned out to be perfect for the last one. And it wasn't, it didn't work for the 77 before, but when I said, oh boy, what am I going to do? I'm at the end. And then I just got, boom, there it is. It was perfect. And so, eight years, took eight years to get to this point to where on November 20, today, it is available on Amazon and people can see it. you know, the whole darn life is a miracle, actually. And this is just one of them in a lifetime. I agree. And so, yeah, I wanted to come back to your inspiration or your guru for having the courage to put this forward and knowing that was the right time. And that was Babaji And oh that was another thing that I was like, I need to go see Babaji and see what Babaji is all about. Because I was like, woo!. I couldn't just read that and let it be. was like, there's something here. And so, and, and I didn't know about Babaji. So I would love for you to share how you connected with Babaji and, just that whole, that whole miracle of that, the magic of that, because I believe that is magic. OK. Yeah, beautiful. Well, Babaji is a deathless saint that is the head of the lineage of which Yogananda Parmahansa Yogananda, who lived in America, was the first Indian teacher to live in America coming in 1920. He's famous for writing the book Autobiography of a Yogi, which was a starter book for millions of people on this virtual path. And I found this book in, I think, 1971, and he became my guru at that time, and it's now 50 plus years later. And so Babaji is the head of the lineage and is even saying his name, we were told, will give an instant blessing. And he is said to work with Jesus. Jesus is the head of the West and Babaji is the head of the East and they combine to make this world work and it's what I believe gives us hope. I was going to say confidence, but let's just say hope. Mm-hmm. that there is a plan and as crazy as the world is right now and very likely is going to get crazier that this is for our highest. And we all know from our personal experience that out of our lows, out of the breakup, comes the new relationship and out of the bad job comes the right job and out of the... the heartbreak comes joy. so I don't believe that the, believe this and I believe this is the world situation and this is what Babaji can teach us. So did you, were you meditating and had a vision of Babaji or how did you get that? Because you wrote in your book, he helped you write the book and yeah. is that when you write that and then you come back to it and a few other things six years later or eight years later, you have no memory of it. at the time, there was a time when I was writing these, was in India and I was writing these short stories, these themes. And I had a neighbor that helped me and she really pulled it together in a way. She told me two or three tips and it really changed the writing and it looked like we were going to do something together and that didn't happen. But there was a phrase that came up at that time that Babaji gave to some friends of ours. And the phrase was, the quickest way to write your book was to stop writing. The quickest way to have your book was to stop writing. And so we stopped writing. And I think that what that has to do with is that you can't push the universe, that it has to come at its own time. And all of the steps in eight years to make this thing manifest, to where you can hold it and it's complete in your hands, required incredible patience, incredible. I thought I knew something and I found out once again that I didn't really know that much. And everything worked out perfect. And it wasn't the right time. And I had an old friend of mine, I posted the book was coming on Facebook and an old friend of mine wrote and said, kind of like it's about time, you know, but she's an old friend and it was okay for her to say that that wasn't negative, but she knew me 25 years ago when I talked about writing a book. So she had the opportunity to do it. She was allowed to do that. And... I don't know. I have to quote you, all the while I was doing nothing. Your friend, oh you ask him and he's like, is he doing nothing? It's so good. So this is wonderful. All of my old friends, all of the people that I've run into, you know, that they really, uh that they touched into you and that you Google them is really exciting because I suppose that's the point, you know, is to Google about them, is to take their teaching. And if you don't, read anything more about them, that's okay too. But to learn more about these particular teachers and the book has a number of these, but the themes are very varied as to what the subject is and how it works. And it comes from many different angles. You may not have read yet about the The random walk talked about how we cross a bridge in India. There's a walking bridge in India that's totally crazy. And I learned that as Westerners, we want the Indians to walk a certain way and the Indians don't walk that way. They don't stand in lines that way. They queue to the sides. They don't queue to the back. And they do what they do. And I realized that there is a thing called a random walk is what a molecule does. It's the way a molecule moves in a cell and and the way that it walks is that Every step, the next step has nothing to do with the step before. It just walks in a random way. And the point being, the point I think of that theme was to take it back to the ability to be random in how your life is and not have it to be regulated that if your meal is late or your partner is late or your car doesn't work and your day is screwed up, maybe there's something higher happening, something else happening. And that's okay to allow the random walk to happen. And this was from my experience of hundreds of times walking this bridge, which is now closed. we're all appalled because the new bridge is totally unbelievable. It's so wide and it's got glass. It's the first glass bridge in India. I don't know that I want to walk over a glass bridge, but But they totally made it a tourist and an attraction when it was so simple. It became too old, they said, and not safe. So we had to build a new bridge. pictures looked a little bit like you had to a major act of trust to get on the bridge. And then once you got on there, you had to be so neurologically alert and so beautiful. We have to pivot in life. Like things come at us and how dead do you feel when you feel like every day is the same and the groundhog like, I know what's happening next. And you know what you mean? Yeah. love that it's over that beautiful river that symbolizes, you know, the cleansing and all the metaphorical meanings of that beautiful river. So there's so many layers to that story. And I want to comment that that is really what the book, that's part of the book is that there are so many layers on it. It's an intended for the neophytes. It's intended for the spiritually deep and experience. It's intended and it's entertaining on the simplest of levels. And I think it holds up a little bit as literature, if I can use that word, that it's entertaining enough to read and follow through. And you may want to take a break after a few. themes. They do have a seriousness, a heaviness, not a unpleasantness, but a, you know, I do that. me, you know, this is, I'm exposed. Let me think about this a while. And, you know, can be read quickly, but really needs to be really thought about and really held for a while and over, read over. I found it so that there's the theme and then at the end there's leveling up and there's about six or seven categories there with exercises and the lessons and the next step and the higher octave and affirmation. When I was editing, sometimes I would read that and I'd have to go back. and read the theme again just to see how it all fits because by the time you get to the end you kind of forget sometimes what was above and it all fits together and I had to kind of go back even though when you read it four and five and six years later you almost don't remember that you wrote it. I was finding myself to that. I'm like, wait, how does that deal with living gravity? Like, and I'd read the story, okay, and then the action steps and the affirmations. Yeah, I do agree. You want to go back and forth and just and reconnect to the, and I appreciate the big picture. And then how these other things support the umbrella. So yeah, that was beautiful. And there's There is one question. Well, I want to go back because that whole idea that we're here to magnify as these gems, as these beings of light, and these concepts all connect us and we reflect what, you know, we'll see in someone else what we might need to see in ourselves. And that the idea that it's all one, but that, you know, we're here on this bridge of randomness. And it's okay to just react and to be in the moment. And, and then you get into the Chinese philosophies of heaven and earth. And then we're in the center is where all this creation happens in the center of each person. And that's, that's a major theme of, of your, of your work is that come back to yourself that it's, it's within you. And that piece and nothing can exist without this piece first in yourself and then and then around you. it all it's like, I don't know, it's a footnote to the universe, I would say, because it's it's not just one wisdom tradition, you've melted so many things. And then what's in your heart and what what your guides wanted to give you because like, I appreciate when you're writing something like this, of this type, you don't always remember the thought you're just you're just streaming you're channeling this Right, absolutely. that, and it's beautiful and it's good, but sometimes you go back and you're like, what? Okay, that was really meant for me. I didn't make that, that was through me. You know, like. Yeah, you say, did I write that? You know, did that come from me? So I had, have, I wrote it and, and, and at one time, so I had the ability to, to read it again and, to, to, to try to remember, to get back into that moment. But it didn't really, the moment was complete as is, and it doesn't matter whether I remember it or not. It didn't matter to me. And the use of the tarot, I mean, there's stigmatism for some people, but to me, it's this frequency and you randomly pull, randomly, but without attachment pulling a card. And that's the energy that you received in this moment of randomness that you had no intention. didn't say, oh, I want a good one. I want a good one. I want the one I'm supposed to see. I want the one that's meant for me. Yeah, the cards want you to want to tell you what they want to tell you. They don't care what you want to hear. They want to tell you what they want to tell you. and how that can give you insight or you can fight it and not be vulnerable to that message. But that's a choice and your peace in your heart is what your goal is for trying to find those answers. So it's beautiful. became a way to organize the information because when I tried, before this idea came, before I was given this idea, which was about two years ago, so it was rather late in the process, I kind of had the idea before, but I tried to organize the material and I didn't really find a very good way. to organize the material. And when I put it into the tarot and I put the themes and connected them up, then it had an incredible power that it didn't have before. And it totally made sense. And I found that themes that were written at different times that I didn't even know had a commonality were next to each other in the book. And for example, I only talked about playing music, listening to music a couple of times, but it turned out that they were next to each other and they were more than, this happened more than once. And it was because that was the area where it just belonged, know, flow as. uh as being into the flow, being into vibrations. And that was, that's different than gravity. That's different than intelligence. That's different than uh energy. Yeah. So I found that themes that I didn't even know had a connection would somehow find each other in this particular order with absolutely no planning. And I know that when you go back and look at the, yeah, right. And it's beautiful. And that it just shows that when you say yes, and you're a conduit for what can be, you don't have to understand it. You're... your intuition will guide you with the trust. Absolutely. Yes, you don't have to understand. don't have to, no, you don't even have to, in a sense, you don't have to believe as long as you believe and disbelieve, as long as you are willing to accept that then you start growing and expanding. And I loved how you said stop taking it so seriously, like your responsibilities, they're there, but you don't have to be so serious about them. you know, that was a beautiful, you know, because we all have things in this 3D world we have to push through and maybe, maybe just. not, like you said, taking it so seriously. It's all going to work out. It's a 3D thing. You're going to figure out that new car. You're going to figure out how to get that ticket to that place you want to go to, or even what your meal's going to be, what your next step is going to be. I have a dear place in my heart for St. Francis, and my grandmother's name was Francis. The whole story about him traveling through the cold and everyone called them, know, shysters and beggars and they got beat up in the street. And St. Francis was like, this is our path. I'm just going to, you know, it's like, this is perfect. We're working for God. This is what happens. Perfect joy. perfect joy. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, so many pearls. mean, just really, even from the carpenter, the music with is Carpenter? Karen, I always have a problem remembering her name, but I love her music. so, I mean, just like, how can one book have so many different lifetimes in it? It's just really fun. So I mean, there's something in this for everyone. Yeah, really, thank you. Yeah, she was the she's the artist and she was the ace of flow and the idea being that sometimes we're Karen and we have a something to say and sometimes we're her brother and we're the accompanist and sometimes we're in the audience and that's beautiful too. And we can each be the artist in whatever we do as we learn to express and live at our highest. And then I wanted to honor your inspiration, Rahaji. He connected East and West, but also you're an embodiment of East and West still to this day. Living half, I don't know how many months you're in India, but you're in India quite a bit, four months. in India and then eight months over here in California. So you're anchoring that mission that he had to connect East and West. And so I honor that. And so wasn't when I learned of his story, I wasn't surprised that that was part of of you having the energy, the courage, the resources, what you needed to stop writing to write this book. So I'll read that. so many ups and downs. authors out there, or wannabe authors, wow, what a challenge it was. So many ups and downs and backs and forwards and doubts and attachments and pains and... and and joys and and at the end you just let it all go that it doesn't you know once you get through it it doesn't really matter you know you we wait for the perfect partner and then we get them and then we we we forget gratitude you know because we take it as commonplace so yeah you know we've been together five years ten years twenty years it's commonplace but no i like to have the uh to remember the joy of each moment and the appreciation and gratitude that fills us in each moment. That is the way to find peace. have a lot of clients in my astrology readings that I do. They come to me to find a place for peace and the place is the inside. That the outside isn't going to do it and that's why they don't find it. And because, well, in the whole coming back to Indra's net, it's you're that jewel until you realize you're the king, you're the queen, you're jewel, you're reflection. you think you're the charcoal until you realize you're the diamond. Yes. I think that's one of the last ones I read. Like I told you, I didn't get through the whole thing because you told me in your book, you're like, stop pushing. Don't go so fast. I was like, okay, I'm good then. I'm going to go meditate and do my makeup. Get ready for recording. this has just been such a delight and our time's coming up. I'm going to put a link to the Amazon to purchase on Amazon if anyone's interested. uh I encourage it because it's a beautiful book and it really spoke to me. And I think at any level, any seeker could get a benefit from exploring these concepts and learning from these stories. And who doesn't want a good story when someone's struggling? Have you heard? Have you heard about the hugger? She changed the world by hugging. mean, who can't give a hug? know, like, so good. Yes, she made it her mission to hug people. Yeah, so simple. moving just to watch a YouTube of her showing up. I think she's in Switzerland right now. You can go to her website and see where she's hugging. And then you can see a stream. And she is so motherly. Yeah. Well, that's a wonderful way to use the book. there are 78 of these. so they're a new each one is really totally different. Maybe maybe there's a few things that are carried over. You know, some of the some of the, you know, you have to keep coming back to yourself. You have to give yourself, uh you know, don't take yourself seriously in all of them. But I think that they're very different and they, and they, uh they're, you turn the page to want to see what's next. And well, I would just if it's okay, I would love to be in the words for a moment. And this is something I wrote down. I was taking notes as I read. follow my heart, my inner knowing doing my best is the answer to everything. So you know, when when someone has a big goal, and you know, you think, I have this goal, I want to reach this accomplishment. Well, in the wanting of the goal, you're missing out on the joy in each moment. And in the wanting of the goal, you're not going to reach that goal because you're wanting it. You're in the space of not having it. You're in scarcity. So that was a uh really, can't remember what chapter it was in. Prosperity consciousness. Yes. Okay. that's, you haven't memorized it so good. don't, but all of a sudden I seem to remember. You've hit the ones that I remember. It's really interesting because, yeah. our net, connection. So I honor that. And I'm just so happy we've reconnected with this. So beautiful. Yeah, so thank you so much for having me. Thank you, all the best.