Life is a Cosmic Joke: Finding God, Wonder & Freedom in the Unknown | Pete Holmes

Exploring Spirituality

Pete begins by unpacking what spirituality means to him: a quest to understand what remains consistent and unchanged beneath the ever-shifting experiences of life. He describes spirituality as a pursuit of "your knowing," the awareness that is always present regardless of circumstance. This inquiry into what is real sparked in childhood through natural curiosity about the world—pondering seemingly simple phenomena like fire or plants and realizing that their essence eludes complete explanation. He recalls being a vivid dreamer, which introduced early questions about the nature of mind and reality. The boundaries between dream and waking life planted seeds for later contemplations about consciousness itself.

Despite his fundamentalist Christian roots, Pete recounts a powerful psychedelic experience with mushrooms that radically shifted his understanding. The experience was neither bizarre nor confounding but rather a deeply moving moment of unitive consciousness where he felt himself as tree, grass, sky—all interconnected. This mystical encounter introduced the idea that religious stories, while not always literally true, could contain profound metaphorical truths pointing to ineffable aspects of reality. He cites Joseph Campbell's claim that some truths are "so big they can only be told with lies," and embraces the idea that metaphor is the indispensable language for expressing the divine.

Deconstructing Belief

The dialogue explores how Pete's spiritual journey led him beyond rigid doctrines to embrace direct experience as the ultimate source of insight. Moving away from associating God with a separate entity "out there," Pete now describes God as the intimate, impersonal awareness in which all experience arises — the "screen" on which the movie of life plays. This screen isn't changed by the film but is always present, steady and unshaken.

Pete humorously explains the metaphor of God as the actor John Smith playing King Lear—lost temporarily in the role but always himself backstage. This points to the non-dual truth that the self is never truly separate from the ultimate reality, and one cannot escape or become anything beyond what one already is. The old Christian image of an angry God or a punitive father is reframed as psychological shadow, a cultural imprint rather than divine truth. Instead, he invites listeners to "accept that you are accepted," a profound recognition that the love and wholeness we seek have always been our birthright.

Reclaiming and Reinterpreting Religious Stories

Pete lovingly revisits biblical narratives such as the Prodigal Son and the Garden of Eden, offering fresh, non-dual perspectives on these ancestral myths. In his reading, the Prodigal Son's leaving and return symbolize the universal human journey of forgetting and remembering our divine inheritance. He points out the radical idea that the father runs out to welcome the son before he even returns fully, emphasizing that the "I am" — God's presence — is always with us, even in the lowest moments symbolized by the son working with pigs, which in Jewish culture is unclean.

Similarly, the story of Eden represents humanity's choice to experience duality — good and evil, yes and no — trading eternal oneness for the richness and complexity of separation. This "order, disorder, reorder" pattern, so central to life and spiritual growth, reflects the cycles through which we pass as we continually rediscover our true nature beneath the illusions of identity.

Comedy as a Path to Wisdom and Freedom

A unique highlight of the conversation is Pete's exploration of how comedy serves a vital spiritual and social function. He challenges the conventional notion that church leaders or spiritual teachers must be flawless or composed, contrasting this with the freedom comedians have to say the unsayable and confront taboo subjects with humor. Comedians can create shared spaces where people momentarily transcend their usual self-identity and enter into collective laughter — a rare experience of unity and letting go.

Pete describes laughter as a kind of brief annihilation of the ego, comparable to meditation or other peak states where one can momentarily escape worries and separateness. He discusses the responsibility comedians carry because humor is profoundly influential, more than just entertainment — it can prime audiences toward kindness, openness, or at worst, harmful attitudes. Despite the pressure, Pete emphasizes authenticity: jokes arise spontaneously and serve as intermediaries not solely for ego but for deeper truths expressed playfully.

Non-Duality and Human Shadows

While the podcast celebrates spiritual awakening, it does not shy away from the human realities of suffering, trauma, and the "messiness" of emotions. Pete shares how awareness of non-duality complements psychological work, including therapy and shadow integration. He speaks honestly about his personal struggles with self-forgiveness and vulnerability in relationships, noting that the spacious awareness which holds all our feelings is a crucial refuge.

He appreciates the gifts and challenges of fatherhood, illustrating how parenting grounds his spirituality in the concrete inescapable fact of humanness—the unpredictability, the frustration, the overwhelming love. This relationship provides both a crucible and a mirror for spiritual maturity, reinforcing that enlightenment is not escape but embracing life fully with all its contradictions.

Wonder, Curiosity, and the Cosmic Joke

Throughout the conversation, wonder remains central. Pete insists on the importance of maintaining childlike curiosity and the ability to laugh at the mysterious absurdity of existence. He delights in the "cosmic joke" that we are lost in a play where the ultimate reality is hiding in plain sight, behind everyone's mask and story.

The interplay of humor and humility invites listeners to loosen rigid viewpoints and embrace the unknown with delight. That even though we are all deeply flawed and confused, "you can't become what you already are," and that recognition is the freedom from which joy bursts forth.