06 Why Spirituality & Web3? An Interview with Rahim from Solana Foundation

By Danver Chandler

It doesn't matter which angle you're coming from, you need to be in a state of mindfulness and and self-awareness so that you can have an edge in this space to keep moving forward. - Rahim

This post includes conversation on psychedelics, which offer some of the most powerful and intense psychological experiences that can be beneficial or potentially dangerous. These substances are illegal in many places. This post is meant for general educational and entertainment purposes. We do not condone breaking of the law.

During the 2022 Solana Breakpoint conference I sat next to man on a shuttle who quickly introduced himself as an entrepreneur. He'd traveled from Singapore for the event and he was intrigued by the fact that I wrote about blockchain through the lens of religion and spirituality. But, he had questions that I really wasn’t prepared for - entrepreneurial questions.  

"What benefit is there in talking about these overlaps? How are you making money talking about this stuff?" There was a pause and apology before he offered his explanation, "I'm a business guy. This is how my mind works, so I'm just trying to understand from this angle?"

I understand, but I also froze. "I think of Crypto Pynk is a passion project."

The conversation evolved into other topics, but his questions lingered on my mind long enough that once I arrived at the next venue I took a moment to chat with Rahim who runs several community initiates at The Solana Foundation. In the days leading up to Breakpoint we had a number of interesting chats over this very topic, and he very quickly shared offered a solution, which became our interview below.

We track Rahim's early beginnings, and move into topics of leadership, how to cultivate your own spiritual practice, leadership, psychedelics, and more! I hope you enjoy our approach to the question, Why should we consider spirituality in Web3?

Love what you're reading? Crypto Pynk is a monthly contemplation for those curious about today's cultural parallels between blockchain, religion and spirituality. Please consider supporting this work by sharing this article, and/or in the link below.

#1 Who are you? What are you doing in this web 3 space?

Rahim:  I am many things - a wizard of sorts. I am leading community growth with the Solana Foundation through the Solana Collective, which is an ambassador program worldwide where people are educating local communities about Solana, and what we are working on in our ecosystem.

Solana Yoga Club...has now become Solana Wellness

A lot of what I do is connecting people and creating strategic partnerships with people and alliances.  

But, also what's important to me is the expansion of our consciousness. So I've also sparked the Solana Yoga Club which has now become the Solana Wellness program. It's unofficial, but it's something that's in the works so that we can integrate more of the healing containers, mindfulness, and wellness into web3 experiences in real life, as well as online.

#2 How would you define spirituality and consciousness for someone in web3 who has no idea what these concepts are?

Rahim: I grew up in a religious family. Coming from a traditional religious family I had a breakthrough in 2016 when I was in Lisbon - that I needed to forge my own path - my own yogic path, which is more spiritual and mystical and esoteric. I found that I needed to find the balance with my career and work life as well so I started learning about yoga and crypto around the same time.

The way that I see it is that spirituality is more about presence and self-awareness. These yogic, Zen, or other spiritual practices allow us to create more awareness of ourselves - awareness of how we relate with the world, and our world view...having the paradigms in place that allow us to see things with clarity, and from what I like to say is a higher perspective.

So the way I see it is that it's all connected.

We're relating with currency at the end of the day in crypto and web3. Crypto comes from the Greek word kryptos which means hidden. It's funny because that parallels with the occult - with the esoteric. It's like, how do we connect with the the unseen, the metaphysical, and have that serve us in our expansion in the digital, which is also technically unseen? It's something that's projected as an extension of our consciousness, which is what this technology is here to do - to help us scale and grow in an evolutionary way.

So the way I see it is that it's all connected. The more self aware we are, the more pleasant we are with our experience. The more energetically aware we are ... I feel can help us navigate the currency and the markets.

I think that navigating this space - whether you're a trader, investor, creative visionary and artist, communicator, or any sort of developer you need to have a certain level of self-awareness of your mental, emotional, physiological, psycho-spiritual state and well-being so you can navigate this space with clarity. It doesn't matter which angle you're coming from, you need to be in a state of mindfulness and self-awareness so that you can have an edge in this space to keep moving forward.

#3. Why is thinking about spirituality, consciousness, and awareness so critical for this blockchain space and for web3?

Rahim: I think when you hit a certain level of consciousness or just awareness in your path, at least for me it's become a lifestyle. It's become a way - a lens for seeing my experience. We tend to fragment everything. We tend to look at things in fractals of the whole. We tend to separate things. The mind creates these separations. Separation is an illusion.

It's up to us to see that things are actually harmonious in our environment and there's a balance to that in the polarity of the yin and the yang - the masculine and the feminine.

Math, right? It's all connected.

You have zeros and ones. In the yogic reference zero is like the yoni portal, and one is like a lingam. You have the masculine and feminine poles, and we're working with this series of alphanumerics which are Hindu-Arabic numerals that have been computed. Now we're using cryptography - crypto... to encode the currency, the flow of energy.

How that currency is managed - well, people put in time and energy and they work. They stack up this currency and it's being traded. We have this means of trading our value and our information. Now how do we scale that for growth?

Well, what's gonna save us the most time, money, and energy? Solana.

We're infinitely abundant at heart - all of us. And there's this game, who has the most currency? But realistically, we're all infinite portals of abundance.

For me it's about optimization for efficiency. If I'm here as a creator and I have 86,400 seconds a day to make an input in my reality...the way that I've got to be doing this is from a place of self-awareness. We want to be as optimized and efficient as possible, and instead of me chasing the bag...going after the money, how can I actually get in touch with the community?

I was on this path of trading and investing and seeing that wow there's actually a community of people behind this technology, and I looked a little deeper and I said Hey I want to be a part of that. That's really where things shifted for me.

I reached out to Raj Gokal, and Anatoly. Then I joined Solana Foundation as a community manager. That's where things really began to pick up for me. In terms of value-input, where I could see myself really thriving is connecting with people. So to me that's an investment that helps the community grow tenfold, and that's more important to me than all the money in the world.

#4. Can you elaborate on what you mean when you say we fragment things, and we don't see how there's an interconnected element?

Rahim: We're in the head. We're in the mind. We get caught up in the mind. The way that we remember that oneness is coming back to our breath, and coming back to our hearts.

This is why I'm guiding breath work through Solana Wellness/Yoga club because that's where we're able to reconnect with our truth. We're actually able to feel into the energy of community, rather than just see it with the mind.

It's like being able to drop in and actually feel the interconnectedness and that's why we need these kinds of practices in a cerebrally oriented space where we're trying to think of how to do things. To think and build logically, we need to come into alignment with our intuition, feel, and breathe into that truth that unites us all.

#5 The Beatles influenced Ray Dalio to start his spiritual journey and he attributes his success to that spiritual journey. What's your perception of leaders who are embracing spirituality versus leaders who are not ready for that perspective or awareness?

Rahim: I grew up in that motivational speaking environment. And I met Tony Robbins when I was six years old, attending his conferences and seminars. That really shaped my mentality. Without these kinds of tools (i.e. leadership training) for transformation and personal development, there's no way we're able to evolve in the business space.

Everything we do is based off of human connection. All this financial technology, web3, and blockchain - it's happening through us - it doesn't just magically appear.

So what are we doing to enhance the peak performance, if you will, the mental and emotional ability to expand in this space? I'm not a developer, but I can tell you that being in that environment is very demanding, and you have to keep coding... and it can be very draining.

With Solana Wellness my intention is, how can we restore that homeostasis and how do we bring that into balance and harmony so you're getting outside, and you're touching grass with your friends, not escaping into the next project?

A lot of that is connecting with psychedelics and spirituality because it gives us that edge and that higher perspective...that we're actually utilizing the technology to work in our favor, rather than working enslaved to the technology.

psilocybin... mushrooms...they are the internet of the forest

It's like how do we find the balance by cultivating our own practices? Psilo-cyber is the name of the project that I have on the back burner - psychedelic healing retreats for developers. I think we can learn a lot from mycelium - from psilocybin, from the mushrooms, because they are the internet of the forest. If we're building the future internet for humanity, we might as well return to nature - to our true nature and learn from this intelligent species of mushroom and fungi. These kind of ecosystems thrive organically. How can we mirror that into web3?

Are you looking for a psychedelic integration therapist? Click below to access the list in your location or remotely from MAPS.

#6. What are the pitfalls of leaders who fail to become self-aware, or take on spirituality in your opinion?

Rahim: When it comes to my mind is overly materialistic

People can get so obsessed with money and power and having the finest things in this dimension. But this is only one dimension of an infinite multitude of realms that we exist in. If we're not tapping into that [wisdom] we're being ignorant to something that has been here longer than we have. And if we're just tapping into the materialism of this age, it's actually a recipe for for disaster.

It's just like, how do we implement what we're doing and show people that are not implementing these practices the benefits, without forcing anyone to do anything that they don't want to do? Hit me up! Let's go for a walk - a nature walk. I think that it's one person at a time - that is how these these things really shift.

#7 I've seen and heard people suggest dosing leaders with psychedelics as the way to get people to change, which I don't agree with. Force is not the way. It's inhumane. You mention a gentle approach in the last question. What is your path?  

Rahim: I walk the left hand path, the tantric, the feminine, and it's beautiful. It's a way of life.

When I'm doing kundalini yoga and breath work I feel way better. I'll go have a green juice. I'm just like everyone else ... there's no, 'I'm better than you because I do yoga' or any of these things. There's weeks also when I go without practice.

So my encouragement to anyone that is reading this, or listening, or just tapping in later on is:

1. be gentle with yourselves
2. trust your higher self
3. give yourself the time and space you need to grow,
4. but don't give up on yourself!

Just trust that you can take it one step at a time and that one micro action step consistently is going to snowball into the habits that align you with your divine destiny.

#8. What's your view on which path leaders and everyday people in web3 can take?

Rahim: Some basic things that everyone can d,o and we should all start with:

1. When you start your day, give yourself at least an hour before you check your phone. That's a practice right there. Give yourself some space for you before you start checking your phone. That's number one.
2. Try breathing with the sun. Go outside and breathe with the sun. Just take deep breaths and soak it up - soak up the sunshine. You're going to start feeling great already.
3. If you have any toxic nourishment habits, go for that green juice first thing in the day. See how you feel. Maybe [try] some warm water with lemon.
4. When you have all of that, grab a pen and paper and brain dump. Just get it all out. Write your thoughts out - just whatever is coming through - whatever you're thinking - whatever you're going through.
5. Then maybe stretch, and make yourself breakfast.

These little habits are going to create this spaciousness for you to feel good, then when you have this cluster fuck of thoughts at the beginning of the day even if you're not meditating, you're creating space to observe your neurotic behavioral patterns. I think more challenging to sit down and meditate - it's easier to sit down breathe soak up some, sun and watch your thoughts even that is a practice.

How you start your day, and how you end your day really determines how you're going to live your day in between. So prioritize your well-being through self-awareness.

#9 What is your spirit animal?

Rahim: It's a Jaguar. Then when I'm in water it's a dolphin. I feel very connected to the animal kingdom.

#10 What's in store for people who are spiritually aware versus those who opt out?

Rahim: I think that if you are not tapping in, you're limiting yourself because your potential is infinite. So if you're living with a blindfold on you can only go so far. But if you're living with the awareness of your true self, and you are consciously choosing to tap into the infinite - to perceive the metaphysical - to perceive the unseen -  to perceive the divinity that is around you ... then you definitely have an edge in this space. You're going to be able to communicate, and create from a place of higher vibration and awareness that is infinite.

I think that if you're living with this level of awareness you are able to integrate that into the digital stratosphere and navigate web3 with a level of creative composure that allows you to express yourself, and to monetize that in an efficient way.

#11 You mentioned that spiritual practice can give you an edge. What does it mean to have an edge in a place of abundance?

Rahim: It's the ability to finesse and move through a predominantly fear oriented space by living in the way of the warrior, which is the way of the heart - with the heart full of courage.

I feel like if you're living through the heart you're more bound to co-create and collaborate with others versus being in a competitive state. Now, competition is healthy in any environment because it promotes growth, so there's benefits to having competition. It's when the competition becomes toxic that it's not conducive to the greater ecosystem - so everything in moderation.

And I think that having an edge over your competition can push your competition to grow and evolve as well.

I'm excited to be here because of the collaborations that we are going to see through this financial technology. From a place of self-awareness, by way of the creative and healing arts (i.e. music and fashion), it can be super healing. I think these are the two doorways into a more exciting web3.

#12 How does spirituality help us break free from repeating the mistakes of the past?

Rahim: I think that with enough self-awareness we learn from our mistakes and we consciously choose to create patterns that serve us in our growth, our expansion. It allows us to embody new levels of who we imagine ourselves to be. I think it's just shifting into a conscious choice of, What are we choosing for ourselves and each other?

#13. Is there anything else that you would like to add?

Rahim: I'm really looking forward to being able to express myself through music and seeing how I can couple that with digital fashion. The vibes that we bring into this space are really going to transform the level of consciousness in the way that we interact, instead of random degen memes or silly NFTS.

I'm also working with Gaia Gives which is a crowdfunding platform for really great causes utilizing crypto and blockchain donations.

We actually have the tools that can inspire radical change in this world, and to shift consciousness  - and to me that's fascinating. So I'm excited to utilize the protocols that are being built to our advantage to actually improve the quality of life for humanity.

☞ You can connect with Rahim on Twitter.