From loss and addiction to spiritual reflection, this meditation guru teaches the power of control
Biet Simkin isn’t your average spiritual leader. Sure, she is one of the leading meditation teachers and published author on the subject, but her path to higher consciousness came about through the school of hard knocks.
Biet experienced more in her first 30 years than most of us will ever experience in a lifetime. She lost her mother at age four and was raised by her father who was an awakened shaman. By her early 20s, she had fully lived the "rock ‘n’ roll glam” lifestyle in New York City, and eventually she succumbed to a heroin addiction. What followed was a near-death experience, the death of her own infant child to SIDs, the death of her father and a fire that burnt down her home, all taking place in rapid succession.
For most of us, having to endure just one of those tragedies would leave us utterly broken. But instead of such epic loss, pushing her deeper into a black hole of despair, it sobered her up and propelled her to get her life back on track.
Today, Biet uses her spirituality and unique life experience as a compass and example of how we all have the power to raise ourselves up, sometimes even further than we even think is possible.
With her edgy style and raw approach, Biet teaches that we can be both spiritual *and* still want the most from life without feeling guilty—whether it be wealth and the urge to shop at Barney’s or success and some damn good sex. She immerses her audiences in meditations that break down inhibitions, offer deep connections and showcase the profoundness of our humanity. So with that, let’s meditate on Biet.
The Void: Who is Biet Simkin?
Biet Simkin: An interesting question. Biet is a really brilliant character in a fictional movie or book about life on Earth. And behind that, the power that is behind Biet Simkin, is the infinite light of the universe. So I guess I would say that I identify with the light that governs Biet Simikin’s character in that fictional piece, but I still have to deploy her to go do my business.
TV: For those who haven’t heard your story, can you tell us a little bit about how your life as a spiritual teacher and meditation guru came to be? What got you started helping others, especially in the way you do it?
BS: Yeah, I think that I was always in a space where magical shit happens. My father was a shaman and bred me inside his work, so we've studied it together from the time that I was a baby. But I don't think there's a coincidence in that because, like, my brother didn't become what I am. I think that it was a blend of being my father's daughter, but also being in a space where weird shit happens. I am in a space where people’s lives get transformed, where people's moods get transfixed, where people's sadness gets transmuted. And so, people would always come to me for that completely unique perspective on reality.
And one day, you know, it dawned on me that it was my calling. And it also dawned on me that it was going to take a lot of balls to turn it into a business, because there's this notion that this “you’re some kind of holy land” stuff should be free, you know what I mean? And so, it was a blend of learning how to become, a marketing person and a businesswoman and all these things, so that I could create a space for people to come in and actually receive this stuff. Because before I was just doing it for free, for my friends and for random strangers and taxi cab drivers.
So, it was just kind of labeling it. The way my friend put it to me, was like: “If you walked into Duane Reade, and the toothpaste didn't say toothpaste on it and it didn't say $4.99, how would you know which one was the toothpaste? Or which one was the deodorant? And how would you know how much it cost?”
TV: You went through a lot very early on in your life; your first 20-some years were pretty tough. How did you find the resilience to start again?
BS: I don't think it's abnormal when coming from complete shock, tragedy and trauma, like I did, to turn it all around. I think that actually, in a way, people have been gifted that kind of offering to either turn it into their life's purpose, or it kills them, you know what I mean?
TV: Was your struggle something that you had to think about on a daily basis?
BS: It was arduous years and years of reprogramming. It was not an overnight thing. I had to reformat, not just the way that I thought, but every single one of my actions, my habits, my desires; I had to put everything into question. Then there was the deeper reprogramming like: this is what you do when you feel ashamed, this is what you do when you feel doubtful, this is what you do when you feel afraid. And I had to relearn all those things, because I had the dumbest programming ever—and also most geniuses do, right? Just because you're smart and interesting and funny and wise and beautiful and sexy doesn't mean you've got good programming. It just seems you've got like a good setup, but you're probably fucked anyway.
TV: How do you navigate the concept of “life is happening for me” and the flow?
BS: I would say everything is happening for me, I don't even think there's anyone else here. If anything's happening, it's happening for me. And it's all about taking that one day at a time, not waiting.
Me not dying from a heroin overdose happened for me, me losing my baby happened for me, me losing my mom, when I was a kid, happened for me. But I think it's actually tougher when we deal with the day-to-day. It's like, why didn't I get invited to that party last week, what the fuck? That stuff, that’s actually harder. I can bear with the “oh well, that happened for me 15 years ago,” but as the day hits me in the face, who am I being as I interact with that shit?
I let myself feel the pain, which usually brings me back to a childhood wound, like when I didn't get invited to this party, which is super irrelevant. That's why I tell the story, because it's so silly that that would even happen or that it would even matter, right? But I didn't get invited to a party last week. Some guy on the street invited someone else to a party right in front of me. I was like “What am I was my chopped liver?” But anyway, the point is that as it happened, I was like, “Oh, my god, that was really painful.” Then I went home and felt the pain. And as soon as I let myself feel the pain and asked into the pain through prayer and meditation, it was clear to me that I didn't care about the party so much as I was still connected to that horrible feeling that I had when I was seven years old and the girls in the playground circled me and said: “We're glad your mother died.” I felt so alone and so confused and so bewildered by what is wrong with humans. And that is something I still haven't recovered from.
Does it matter that I get invited to the party? No, not at all. Because the truth is, is that there's nowhere that I am supposed to be that I'm not today. So if I wasn't invited to that party, clearly, I was meant to be somewhere else. Even if it's nowhere, even if I was meant to be eating pizza in my bedroom. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be so dramatic, it just means I wasn't meant to be there, you know?
TV: You started club soda, an event series for the sober curious, with your friend Ruby Warrington. What was the importance of that in terms of spirituality—why was sobriety so important for you?
BS: I'm sober, almost 11 years completely sober. And I don't fuck with anything: no drugs, no alcohol. But I'm really curious about how I get high in life without those things. I don't want to shortcut, I want to know how to find bliss on my own because I have taken away the tools that gave it to me for free, so to speak. The tools of heroin, cocaine, mushrooms, LSD, you name it, I took those tools away. And so what I was left with was a question and an inquiry and a quest. And that quest has led me to actually discover tools that I now use daily.
TV: In general, what are some powerful things that meditation has brought to your life?
BS: Real freedom. Real freedom isn't the ability to do whatever you want, it's actually the ability to not do whatever you want. It's a life that is curated and filled with choices.
TV: What advice do you have for the people who do struggle to get into a recurring meditation practice?
BS: Of course you're going to struggle to get into anything. Anything that’s new is going to be new, right? So I wouldn't say nothing's going to happen for you, but you have to do something, if you want something to feel different. And yeah it sucks, but if you want abs, you're going to have to do all kinds of shit that feels horrible to get them, over and over again, you know?
TV: What prompted you to write the book “Don’t Just Sit There!”?
BS: The work that I teach is called ‘fourth way’ and I’ve been a fourth way student my whole life. And the people who teach fourth way, of which there's like five of us, they're, like, over the age of 80. And on top of that, the books about fourth way work are incomprehensible, confusing and dense. And so, I just wanted to dial down that wisdom that I've been studying for 40 years into something that people can really eat. And it's not mine, but the idea behind fourth way work is that you want to come to a state of enlightenment while you're in life. To me, the ultimate vision is being a JayZ-level of successful on a three dimensional plane, but having the freedom of a homeless person with cardboard box on the sidewalk. But most people are too afraid to get to that level, because they don't want all the responsibility. So that's what fourth way does, it says you can actually be JayZ, but you can have monk-sitting-in-a-forest levels of tranquility while you do it. And that's different, that’s fourth way work, and that’s what my book is all about.
TV: If you could be remembered for one thing, what would you want it to be?
BS: I think that I would want to be remembered for being a conscious human, like Leonardo da Vinci, because I don't think Leonardo da Vinci was remembered for one thing, right? He was remembered for painting and science and anatomy, and God knows what else. To me, to be conscious and to be an awakened human is what I want to be remembered for, because there's something that comes out of it that is completely authentic.
