1/∞ : Spiritual Arts Podcast with Reza Safinia
Aug 5, 2026 · 1 hr 16 min · 15 segments
Anthony is a Los Angeles–based director, producer, and AI artist whose commercial work spans campaigns for Porsche, Verizon, Gateway, and Mastercard, with adaptation work tied to The Last of Us, Star…
Anthony PietromonacoGuest
Reza SafiniaHost
Yeah, I mean, there's two, there's two subject points that I find really fascinating.
One is the thing that we were talking about earlier today, which is the idea that you don't, you're not actually ever making a choice in this life.
You made all the choices as you came into the life and that you're actually using the life to figure out why you made those choices and that...
And we were talking about it coming out of a scene from The Matrix where Neo goes to see the Oracle, and the Oracle says that to him, says that, "Actually, you know, I didn't tell your future.
I just, you had already made the choice, and I knew what choice you'd already made, and you're just figuring out why." That's one question.
The other question that keeps coming up, uh, is the question of God being this unique soul consciousness in the entire universe, so that you don't actually exist, I don't actually exist on, on that level.
Like in terms of the consciousness, we share that one consciousness, and yet God is too vast to understand itself.
Therefore, in, in order to, for it to have a c- perception of itself, like a mirror, it needs to divide itself into these fragments of consciousness that are what we are, and what all the animals are, and what all the plants are, and everything is in, in the entire universe, and in doing so, it has self-discovery.
So there's a s- there's a short story, um, by Andy Weir called "The Egg," and I think it kind of addresses both of those questions simultaneously in a way.
There's a guy who dies in a car accident, and in between being reincarnated into his next life, he has a conversation with God.
And, uh, over the course of the conversation, he comes to discover that he's gonna be reincarnated but that when he gets reincarnated, he's gonna be reincarnated in the past.
If I was reincarnated in the past, then I could have re-encountered myself at some point." He's like, "Yeah, well, that happens all the time." He's like, "Well, what do you mean?" And he comes to find out that every hu- every human lifetime that ever has been or will be experienced will be lived by the same human spirit re-encountering itself over and over and over again.
And once the s- once that human spirit has Live the sum total of human life, then it can evolve into whatever the next plane of intelligence, of consciousness is.
That every act of kindness or every act of cruelty that has ever been committed or will be committed was against yourself or toward, like, or towards yourself." And in the context of, like, my work a- and, and in working with, um, you know, documenting people's perceived versions of reincarnation and all of these things, there's this idea that what is the purpose of a life, right? And the purpose of the life seems to be to learn, to experience, and then to contribute to some sort of a collective.
Uh, and, uh, you know, people that work with psychedelics and things and that sort of, that sort of thing, like in my experience working with psychedelics, my most favorite part about it is, yes, I'm, I get to help people.
I get to help people help themselves, but the part that I enjoy the most is whenever they come out of these experiences, and I get front row seats to them describing their, th- in their truest, most honest, most raw moment what they find their, they, they, they think their purpose is.
Yeah, I mean, there's two, there's two subject points that I find really fascinating.
One is the thing that we were talking about earlier today, which is the idea that you don't, you're not actually ever making a choice in this life.
You made all the choices as you came into the life and that you're actually using the life to figure out why you made those choices and that...
And we were talking about it coming out of a scene from The Matrix where Neo goes to see the Oracle, and the Oracle says that to him, says that, "Actually, you know, I didn't tell your future.
I just, you had already made the choice, and I knew what choice you'd already made, and you're just figuring out why." That's one question.
The other question that keeps coming up, uh, is the question of God being this unique soul consciousness in the entire universe, so that you don't actually exist, I don't actually exist on, on that level.
Like in terms of the consciousness, we share that one consciousness, and yet God is too vast to understand itself.
Therefore, in, in order to, for it to have a c- perception of itself, like a mirror, it needs to divide itself into these fragments of consciousness that are what we are, and what all the animals are, and what all the plants are, and everything is in, in the entire universe, and in doing so, it has self-discovery.
So there's a s- there's a short story, um, by Andy Weir called "The Egg," and I think it kind of addresses both of those questions simultaneously in a way.
There's a guy who dies in a car accident, and in between being reincarnated into his next life, he has a conversation with God.
And, uh, over the course of the conversation, he comes to discover that he's gonna be reincarnated but that when he gets reincarnated, he's gonna be reincarnated in the past.
If I was reincarnated in the past, then I could have re-encountered myself at some point." He's like, "Yeah, well, that happens all the time." He's like, "Well, what do you mean?" And he comes to find out that every hu- every human lifetime that ever has been or will be experienced will be lived by the same human spirit re-encountering itself over and over and over again.
And once the s- once that human spirit has Live the sum total of human life, then it can evolve into whatever the next plane of intelligence, of consciousness is.
That every act of kindness or every act of cruelty that has ever been committed or will be committed was against yourself or toward, like, or towards yourself." And in the context of, like, my work a- and, and in working with, um, you know, documenting people's perceived versions of reincarnation and all of these things, there's this idea that what is the purpose of a life, right? And the purpose of the life seems to be to learn, to experience, and then to contribute to some sort of a collective.
Uh, and, uh, you know, people that work with psychedelics and things and that sort of, that sort of thing, like in my experience working with psychedelics, my most favorite part about it is, yes, I'm, I get to help people.
I get to help people help themselves, but the part that I enjoy the most is whenever they come out of these experiences, and I get front row seats to them describing their, th- in their truest, most honest, most raw moment what they find their, they, they, they think their purpose is.
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