735. Dan Kelso

Buddha at the Gas Pump

Rick Archer

Spirituality, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 737 Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2025

⏱️ 144 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While expanding his education and eventually working at a number or companies as an HF engineer, Dan's first love was always spiritual exploration. In 2011, after a number of years of trial and error refining the process of self inquiry into deep self investigation, there came an undeniable recognition that he was not a separate self. Simply no one at all. There was only the selfless THIS, "aware existence". This became his permanent condition. Soon after, (from a certain perspective), Dan left a successful corporate position and his old life, following an intuited impulse to be in a more free, natural and creative circumstance. He now lives with his wife Victoria in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina, loving nature, exploring various forms of artistic expression and guiding others to awakening. Website: deepselfinvestigation.com Book: Deep Self Investigation: A Modern Guide to Awakening Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group Transcript of this interview Interview recorded July 19, 2025 YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction to Dan Kelso  00:02:00 - What is Deep Self Investigation (DSI)?  00:03:52 - The Scientific Approach: Direct Experience Over Intellect  00:06:20 - The Paradox of "Who" is Doing the Inquiry?  00:08:40 - Are Humans Different from Nature?  00:11:20 - The Sense of Self as a Fiction  00:15:20 - Association vs. Identification with the Body  00:17:20 - Detachment During Intense Experiences  00:19:36 - The Paradox of Being the Doer and Not the Doer  00:22:20 - The "I Got It, I Lost It" Phase  00:24:56 - The Impact of Awakening on Daily Life and Relationships  00:29:04 - Distinguishing Detachment from Psychological Dissociation  00:33:04 - Awakening's Influence on the Body-Mind  00:36:16 - Is the Sense of Self a Prerequisite for Awakening?  00:39:52 - Life Changes and the Pace of Integration  00:42:48 - Don't Dig a Bunch of Shallow Holes  00:45:24 - Q&A: Knowing Physical Pain Without Being In It  00:48:08 - Q&A: Does Formal Practice Continue After Awakening?  00:52:40 - Tapping into Other Dimensions of Existence  00:56:56 - Q&A: Handling Family Triggers and Maintaining Realization  01:00:40 - Q&A: Is the Sense of "Me" Always in the Middle?  01:03:56 - Guided Self-Inquiry with Rick  01:09:08 - Detachment vs. Inappropriate Behavior  01:12:00 - The Importance of Spiritual Integrity and Confronting Unethical Teachers  01:17:52 - The Intuitive Knowing of Right and Wrong  01:22:36 - The Degeneration of the Dao  01:23:52 - Conclusion

Transcript

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0:00.0	was managing a department. I had to have meetings. I had to give talks. I had to do presentations.
0:05.1	And I remember at Apple in the middle of a training exercise for a bunch of managers and then just
0:11.8	going, who's standing up here talking, you know, really looking in. And then just like I was
0:16.5	another person, I was just floating awareness in the room. There's Dan waving his arms and pointing
0:22.9	at the board and going on and I have nothing to do with it. It's just running on its own. Experiencing
0:29.6	that sense of space was just very profound. It never left.
0:46.7	Welcome. welcome to Buddha at the gas pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the gas pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening people. I've done 730 something of
0:53.4	them now. And if you are not familiar with this and you'd like to check out the archive, go to batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, and you'll see them categorized in various ways.
1:05.0	This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. That's really our only means of support.
1:12.6	So if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there are PayPal buttons on every
1:17.6	page of the site and a page about alternatives to PayPal. Also, it helps in terms of viewership if you
1:24.6	like and subscribe and so on. When you're watching a YouTube video it helps with
1:29.5	Google's algorithm in terms of making the thing accessible to more people so my guest today
1:37.3	is Dan Kelso Dan worked at a number of companies as a human factors engineer.
1:45.0	If he wants, he can explain to us what human factors is, but it's not too relevant to our interview.
1:50.0	Dan's first love was always spiritual exploration.
1:54.0	In 2011, after a number of years of trial and error, refining the process of self-inquiry into deep self-investigation,
2:03.5	there came an undeniable recognition that he was not a separate self, simply no one at all.
2:09.0	There was only this selfless this, aware existence. This became his permanent condition.
2:16.2	Soon after, from a certain perspective, Dan left a successful corporate position and his old life,
2:22.3	following an intuitive impulse to be in a more free, natural, and creative circumstance.
2:27.3	He now lives with his wife, Victoria, in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina,
	...

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