A coach, an author, a spiritual entertainer, and a Sufi – although unwittingly (more to come on that.) Will Pye dialed into our Awakin call from Melbourne, Australia, on a Sunday morning just after 4am. In the next hour, he journeyed with us on the paths from depression and negativity to gratitude, self-compassion, and “being the change.”

Birju: What is radical gratitude to you?

Will: Gratitude is a cure for depression, a reprogramming of mind, a training to look at the good that is always there, even though not always obvious. Where it gets radical is to begin to apply that to all events – emotional pain, fearful circumstances, and the inevitable difficulties of life – such as someone cutting in front of your car in traffic.

Birju: It is a big leap to go from being grateful for the good things to being grateful for everything.

Will: With hindsight, I found out that no events are bad. There were learning, growth, opportunity. So I wasn’t able to determine the value of something as they are unfolding. Radical gratitude arose for me in a moment of acute mental discomfort – a depressed energy arising yet again. I have tried to escape it many times, without success. So, I asked, what if I just surrender, and say thank you? In so doing, it transformed my experience into lightness and relaxation. There is a transformative power to gratitude.

Birju: How do you get from intense negativity to an opening of transformation?

Will: It was through a process of suffering and ineffective responses – trying every possible way to not feel what was asking to be felt; to resist. It was causing pain; there was a desperation. Thanks to maybe a wider intelligence beyond the conscious mind, I was graced with the opportunity to lean in to the pain. Through perceiving the pain, it became less troublesome and more neutral.

Birju: You have been successful in traditional sense doing fund-raising, but you have never ceased the inner inquiry along the way.

Will: Over the years, I have increasingly devoted myself to that inner inquiry – and helping others on that journey. This is what I desire more than anything. It nourishes my being, and gives me perspectives into what it is like to be another human being. This “collecting of perspectives” is something that has endless fascination for me. My biggest passion is to shift my inner perspectives moment to moment, and working with others to do the same, in order that the collective quality of experience gets shifted.

Birju: How has the process of inviting perspectives led you to think differently?

Will: It began with a methodical gratitude practice every morning and evening. I take time to wallow in gratitude, indulge in beautiful exercises, such as singing and shouting in the rain on a New Zealand beach. These days, what it involves is simply grateful for being itself, coming back to the fact that I am here.

Birju: Many in our society have doubt about inner shift as a process for social change.

Will: There is difference in the work coming from a place of open-hearted love, versus from a place of “I should be doing this” obligation. The inner experience influences the quality of the external work. The quality of the consciousness is more powerful in its effect than what is being done. To be appreciative is to be revolutionary in this world.

Birju: Could you connect the small to the large? Gandhi had the idea of having one eye on the microscope, and one on the telescope.

Will: The division between the inner and outer is a construction that only exist in the mind. Science is increasingly pointing to the same direction, to oneness and the interconnection. When the Buddha awakened, we all awakened. One thing changes, everything changes.

Birju: How did you react when you were diagnosed with a brain tumor?

Will: In February 2011, the doctor told me they found a lump in my head. My response was a great wonderment. A few days before the diagnosis, I wrote in my journey: death is certain; it’s timing uncertain. So, what is important: now. When I later learned that the lump is cancerous, I felt peace, and immense gratitude.

Birju: What is it that leads to that peace?

Will: Soon after the tumor diagnosis, there was a surrendering that occurred, to death. If I did not want to die, then I was going to suffer. In that surrendering, I came into contact with the eternal part of “me” that will never die. The awareness has no beginning nor end; it is outside of time. As long as I am being of service to others, everything else is OK.

Birju: What is your relationship to doing work in the world? You recently wrote a book.

Will: The book “Blessed with a Brain Tumor” shares how life circumstances can be experienced with an absence of stress and suffering. I also do transformational coaching and facilitation work with individuals and groups, creating inner shifts, so that they can be the change they want to see. The process is enlightening for me, too – we all evolve. My deeper intent is always to transform consciousness, and embody love and truth.

Birju: How does your relationship to other elements of life – such as consumption and money – start to change?

Will: There is a complete trust that I will have enough to eat and have a shelter. But the transition has also made me “grateful” for Visa and American Express (laugh). I still pay rent and credit card bills. We can all notice that worrying about not having enough doesn't seem most conducive to have enough. My commitment is to know only god’s love, abundance, peace, and joy. I am in this experimentation as much as anyone is. When fear arises, I seek to transform it and surrender to it.

Birju: So it’s not about having an answer; it is acknowledging that the question needs to be lived into. This connects back to where you are coming from, stories from your younger days.

Will: “In order to experience peace, we have to pass through that which is not peace.” Despair and joy are closely linked. “Our pain is eroding the shell that keeps us separate from the world.” Life seemed unfair, hypocritical. I couldn’t understand how my own experience is so difficult, and that confusion and despair kept coming back no matter how much I worked on them.

Curiously, when my parents divorced when I was an early teenager, there was deep knowing – an awareness – that there was a function in all of this. This was all educational about the nature of mind, and how to transform and be free from suffering.

Amit: What practices do you do to move from addiction to non-addiction, from depression to gratitude? With a strong inertia of “kicking yourself syndrome”, how do you go toward self-compassion?

Will: My primary practice is meditation – taking time to notice what is arising, to see what is actually happening. Also a rigorous practice of gratitude to retrain the mind from a victim consciousness to something different. Another incredibly powerful tool is to re-story. “I am loving, kind, reliable, discipline.” Bring self-love and self-compassion into it – this is the absolute core of all. I need to see value in myself, and know I am worthy. Love ourselves as much as we seek to love others, rigorously. That was absent for me for a long time.

Many of us also have the experience of beating ourselves up for beating ourselves up. We are all in the same boat. Being compassionate to self is a wonderful service to others as well.

Q: How were you unwittingly initiated as a Sufi?

Will: I have been a lover of Sufism. At a Sufi conference, I experienced for the first time Sufi whirling. I went to express gratitude to the sheikh after the incredible experience. We connected deeply, and the sheikh asked, “Have you taken Muhammad into your heart?” I said that my heart is pretty full with Jesus, Buddha, Thoreau, and so on. But if there is room for more, then sure! So the sheikh had me say something in Arabic, which I don’t know what it meant, and later found out that what I said initiated me as a Sufi!

Q: What are your lessons from working in contexts – and with people – that do not lend themselves to talking about love, gratitude, and meditation?

Will: It’s certainly not always helpful to speak of these things, but always helpful to be these things. Bring awareness to the interaction, and see someone as a whole and complete expression of the universe. To be the change, rather than to tell people what the change is.

Q: How does one discriminate between self-love and ego?

Will: Where there is truly love, there is no ego. Whatever is experienced in this moment, if I am loving it, then there is no ego.

Amit: Can you tell us a bit more about your work with individuals?

Will: It’s exploring and inquiring with an individual. I also hold “radical gratitude playshops.” There are two principles that guide my work: one is to empower people to find the insights for themselves. Second, is to experience the shifts. All in a lighthearted way – play!

Amit: What is outrageous joy?

Will: It is noticing that we are. The absolutely miraculous, astonishing nature of being human.

“It’s 5:26am now, and I have already had a great day.” Will certainly speaks for all of us on the call, and we are grateful to share the wisdom – and the being – of this moment.