Deep Transformation (Deep Transformation Podcast)

Ep. 134 (Part 2 of 2) | Author, podcaster, farmer, and poet, Brendan Graham Dempsey, brings passion, dedication, clarity, and outstanding scholarship to the fascinating and enormously important study of cultural evolution, which operates on both a personal level and a collective one. He illuminates how, when, and why we shift from one cultural worldview to the next, using his own life’s journey through the cultural stages as a map and paints colorful portraits of the outstanding characteristics of each stage: traditional/premodern, modern, postmodern, and metamodern. Brendan enlightens us as to the tumultuous and often lonely and despairing time that occurs when our prior stage has been deconstructed and we find ourselves between worldviews in a liminal space where sensemaking fails. As he puts it, we live in certain worlds to help us navigate reality. But then things change, and we bump up against the limits of things. Now the time has come to update our sense of the world; we are invited to expand and grow.

We come to understand why it is necessary for cultures to evolve—to accommodate ever increasing complexity—and why culture wars and confusion result from misunderstanding a worldview that infiltrates your psyche before it’s ready. Brendan explains why postmodernism does not serve us now, introducing and inviting us to the new, emerging worldview of metamodernism, where there is hope in positivity, affirmation, and aspirational idealism. Hope, and the promise of coming together in a new understanding among peoples, a prerequisite for dealing with the challenges of the global crises that affect us all. Brendan brings a big heart, keen mind, and a lot of verve to these complex subjects, which come alive under his brilliant tutelage. As he points out, deconstructing the psyche can help save the world, adding, this is a lot of what the metamodern community is trying to get the word out about. Recorded May 1, 2024.

“Metamodernism is a worldview of worldviews, a cultural logic of cultural logics, trying to expand beyond the frame we have been working in…to a framework where we can relate to each other in deeper ways, and find deeper modes of understanding, compassion, and empathy with one another.“

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• How do the Civil Rights movement and other awareness expanding movements fit into cultural evolution? (00:57)
• Postmodernism in academia (06:21)
• Postmodern art, films, punk, grunge—a response to how superficial the suburban world has become (07:30)
• To move out of the cynical and skeptical, your critique can’t be all cynical too—you’ve got to start affirming things (08:22)
• Thus metamodernism: a turn to sincerity, earnestness, moving through irony (10:54)
• How metamodernism shows up in the arts—like with many worldviews, the artist often shows up as forerunner of the shift in stages (14:28)
• Metamodernism is a move towards hope, values, aspirational idealism—from negativity to positivity (16:23)
• Postmodern academia profoundly needs a paradigm shift because all categories of knowledge have been deconstructed (19:52)
• Culture wars and the confusion that results from misunderstanding a worldview that infiltrates your psyche before it’s ready to assimilate it (23:32)
• Metamodernism offers tools to help bring clarity...

Ep. 156 (Part 2 of 3) | Integral polymath Sean Esbjörn-Hargens is the first comparative scholar to undertake differentiating the myriad varieties of nonduality. A longtime spiritual practitioner within several nondual traditions, Sean wanted to find out how we can understand the relationship between reality, consciousness, and practice. He decided to delve into a comprehensive study of nonduality and was surprised and excited by what he found: 40 distinct nondual traditions, ancient and new, from East and West, fascinating in their differences, their similarities, their uniqueness, and their depth. Sean’s hope is that his comparative analysis of nondual traditions will open the door to a global, cross-tradition dialogue that will supersede centuries of misunderstanding and conflict among people arguing that their realization is the best and/or only correct interpretation of reality and allow nondual traditions to enrich and empower one another.

Enthusiasm and excitement flow throughout the conversation as Sean reveals provocative patterns he has uncovered in nonduality's history and the distinctions he has mapped so far. It becomes clear that nondual realizations evolve in a way similar to developmental models in terms of subject/object relationship, psychology of self, and taking new perspectives, and that they will continue to evolve. As Sean puts it, “the ontological floor keeps dropping out as the endpoint of spiritual realization.” “What will our nondual traditions look like in a thousand years? In two thousand years!” Sean wonders. Hang on to your hats for a thoroughly enjoyable and eye opening ride through a goldmine of information about the many faces and potentials of our nondual traditions. Recorded September 12, 2024.

“Our nondual traditions are one of the best things people have created – ever!”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Science and the new relationship between subject and object (00:50) 
• 6 subject-object strategies that nondual traditions embrace (02:51)
• Roger’s acknowledgment of the enormous contribution Sean is making as the first comparative scholar to differentiate the varieties of nonduality (04:59)
• Provocative patterns in the history of nonduality and the mysterious flourishing of nondual traditions from around the 11th to the 14th century (09:28)
• Nondual texts that only emerged in the last 100 years have expanded our nondual horizons—and there’s a lot more to discover (13:08)
• The ontological floor keeps dropping out as the endpoint of spiritual realization (16:04)
• What are our nondual traditions going to look like in 1,000 years? (17:32)
• The concept of endless realizations and awakenings liberates us from needing to find the ultimate nondual realization (18:29)
• Dr. Jeffery Martin’s research: 32 fundamental positions on nonduality (20:29)
• Sequential realizations and why you might go back to a previous realization (21:43)
• What makes a global, comparative nondual analysis so worthwhile (26:04) 
• You have to become someone before you become no one; and now you can become everyone (27:48)
• Merging consciousness with another’s unique realization: all one, empty, while also distinct and unique (30:02)

Resources & References – Part 2

Ep. 158 (Part 1 of 2) | In the 5th dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, spiritual teacher and author Hameed Ali discusses the dynamic, ever changing, infinitely creative nature of the universe, and explains that our individual souls are in some sense a microcosm of this energy, with endless potentials and possibilities. We can experience creative dynamism, Hameed says, as “a sense of infinite energy, pulsing and throbbing, where we see the whole universe in continual emergence, every moment new.” Although the soul has boundless potential, we tend to take the limited approach that what we already know is the extent of things; the key to loosening the limits we place upon ourselves is to practice inquiry and remain open to all directions of possibilities. Each individual experiences the dynamism in a different way and expresses the potentiality of reality in a different way, says Hameed. When we are in touch with our true nature, we share in the creativity of the divine. 

In this conversation, Hameed also talks about death: how we can be curious about it, how it is the ultimate in finality, one more possibility of reality, and that he doesn’t presume to know it, only that true nature is the source of time and does not die. Life can be experienced like a fountain rather than a flowing river, Hameed relates. And the more our ego structures are released, the more we can open to its beautiful array of endless possibilities. Another profoundly intriguing, subtly humorous, and absolutely enlightening conversation with Hameed Ali. Recorded October 10, 2024.

“The soul is a living expression of the fundamental nature of reality. There’s no end to the potentiality.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing the fifth A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series with Hameed Ali, focusing on the soul’s infinite potential and the creative dynamism of reality (01:07)
• The soul has boundless potential, but we tend to take the limited approach that what we know already is the extent of things (04:07)
• We don’t have to look for the boundless possibilities—we just need to be open (08:16)
• The main tool for fostering this openness is inquiry: what is presenting itself? (10:01)
• We all share the potential; we are all fundamentally connected (12:16)
• Reality, true nature, is in constant creative dynamism (13:34)
• The logos of the integration of spirituality and rational knowing can be applied to every field of knowledge (14:33)
• Imagine a community of scientists who are all realized spiritually, their inquiry powerfully infused by spiritual understanding (15:50)
• We are just at the beginning of understanding the physical world (18:22)
• Just because something is true doesn’t mean it’s complete (21:55)
• Einstein’s theory of relativity and the Riemannian manifold (26:03)
• The nondual is never separate from the dual (28:25)
• Distinguishing between the fundamental nature of pure awareness and the nature of the soul (30:27)
• The close connection between individual potential and creativity and universal dynamism and creativity (32:24)
• We can experience creative dynamism: a sense of infinite energy, where we see the universe in continual emergence, every moment new...

Ep. 142 (Part 2 of 2) | Award-winning author of The Web of Meaning and founder of the Deep Transformation Network, Jeremy Lent, relates how his discovery of systems thinking opened the door to a whole new way of making sense of the world and illumined his in depth exploration of what creates meaning. In looking into what forms concepts like God, soul, humanity, nature, and science, Jeremy came to understand the thinking that has led to the existential crisis we face now, then began to explore what it would take to break out of the worldview that has caused so much destruction on so many levels. Jeremy integrates systems thinking with concepts from evolutionary biology, neuroscience, ecology, and traditional and indigenous wisdom, forming a holistic view of science, where “maybe the distinction between science and spirituality isn’t really valid.”

Jeremy’s heartfelt intention is to act as translator—to make it enjoyable for people to explore difficult concepts like consciousness and evolutionary biology they might otherwise steer away from—as well as be a catalyst for large-scale transformation. His vision of a potential future “ecological civilization” builds on the evolutionary success of life itself—ecosystems living in mutual symbiosis—and includes the idea of “islands of coherence” which would provide a bridge from a disintegrating society to a new and flourishing one. Systems thinking, like indigenous wisdom, recognizes the deep connectedness of all things, a realization, Jeremy points out, that leads to the knowing that nothing is inevitable and the choices we make matter. Jeremy leaves us with a sense of agency and of liberation, as well as a sense of responsibility to work together in the shaping of a life-affirming, sustainable future. Recorded June 20, 2024.

“Based on a deep understanding of systems thinking, there is nothing inevitable about any of this.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Can flourishing-of-the-commons ideas be scaled beyond small, local ventures? (01:25)
• Polycentric self-organization: a large region in Syria has instituted a form of government called democratic confederalism (03:53)
• Where are the most strategic places to intervene? (08:45)
• Becoming a transformation catalyst—amplifying the entire system of people moving toward a life-affirming future (09:59)
• Neoliberalism is a great model for successfully transforming a culture’s dominant ideas and creating fundamental change (13:13)
• Is there any hope of a rapid evolutionary leap to a more beautiful, more functional system? (17:18)
• Breaking through to the next level will require self-organizing and setting conditions for prosocial behavior on a global level (21:23)
• Understanding that the choices we make matter gives us a sense of agency, liberation, and responsibility (24:46)
• It’s important to move away from attachment to outcome—just do the right thing to do (28:18)
• The necessary perspectival shifts will only occur in people at a post-conventional stage of development (30:51)
• Animate intelligence is an intuitive system that allows people to feel their heart (33:24)
• Creating a life-affirming future (37:14)
• Rupert Sheldrake’s morphogenetic fields (39:05)
• From a systems perspective, these...

Ep. 101 (Part 2 of 2) | With extraordinary joyfulness and verve, Native American shaman Charles Lawrence tells the inspiring and fascinating tale of how as a young man, he left psychology, religion, and the white man’s domesticated world in the dust when he became initiated on his journey by mythologist Joseph Campbell, and a paranormal world opened its doors. “If you have a destiny, you better go gracefully, or you’ll get dragged by your heels,” Campbell told him. Indeed, to this day, now in his late 80s, Charles follows the call to ceremonies and Elder Councils all over the world, sharing his sacred shamanic energy and wisdom in blessing and benefit for all. Part Blackfoot by origin, Charles was baptized by traditional Hopi Elders, adopted by elders of Lakota and Coast Salish (Musqueam band), and acknowledged and accepted by Native American tribes and Indigenous Peoples near and far. Here, Charles transmits his love of life, his fearlessness around death, and his easy familiarity with the multidimensionality of existence, the limitlessness in every moment. “Is there joy in this moment in time?” he asks. “If not, why not?”

In regard to our collective future, Charles tells us that solutions await us beyond our normal consciousness; in relation to our personal yearning, he describes the transformative power of being seen, being witnessed for who we are at the deepest level, to free our souls and break out of the box. He urges us to sing, to dance, and to “cry our own cry.” (“Nobody has your cry, your experience. You’ve got to cry your own cry.”) Charles also shares his liberating approach to death (“Dying is simple, just pull out the clutch and go into neutral!”), about how he acquired “death medicine,” a wonderful ability to help people make the transition, and his own death medicine practice. One cannot help but be thoroughly inspired and reinvigorated listening to Charles—as Roger wrote him afterwards, “You left a legacy of joy in all of us. I will sing and laugh more and open the door wider to Mystery because of it. And try to practice my last 10 breaths.” Recorded June 1, 2023.

“I live by deliberate intent, my default place is joy, my ultimate place is ecstasy.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Solutions are already waiting for us beyond the average consciousness (01:17)
• Being a hollow bone and how opening to the Mystery is an ongoing practice (03:42)
• Stepping over the threshold, you are not the same person coming out: how are you different now? (04:56)
• Once you have been witnessed, you are forever changed (07:10)
• Raisa Gorbachev, Grandmother Carolyn, a trip to Russia in 2001, and on to South Africa with the Bush people (11:18)
• Why buy death by default? Die individually and make it a glorious journey, take your last 10 breaths as a practice (14:30)
• What is death medicine? (17:05)
• Everything about the journey is sacred, everything is wakan, and some of us are wake-makers (18:47)
• Grief is one of our biggest teachers (20:14)
• What is it that’s just waiting at any moment to burst out of us in joy? (22:29)
• Singing and dancing: your joy is essential to the emotional well-being of the village (25:31)
• The multidimensionality of existence and the shadow issues of Western culture—but it can be win-win-win, a benefit for all beings...

Ep. 4 (Part 2 of 2) | In this riveting, mind opening (and bending) conversation, philosopher and peak performance expert Jamie Wheal takes our existential metacrisis head on, asking and often answering the biggest questions we, the human race, face today. “How do we do this human thing with our heads up and our hearts open and not get crushed by the tragedies and absurdities of it all?” “How can we tune into the wisdom, the transpersonal heights?” More than inspirational, this conversation is like an infusion of the energetic, coherent, transpersonal potential of human beings. Guaranteed, you won’t see things the same way after listening. Recorded on September 15, 2021.

Jamie Wheal is the author of Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind and the global bestseller Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work. He’s also the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance. Jamie’s work and ideas have been covered in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, Entrepreneur, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc., and TED. Jamie has spoken at Stanford University, MIT, the Harvard Club, Imperial College, Singularity University, the U.S. Naval War College and Special Operations Command, Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, the Bohemian Club, and the United Nations.

Topics & Timestamps - Part 2

• Die before you die and come back open-hearted with a hell, yes! (03:52)
• A plug for good, old-fashioned human love and rootsy wisdom (06:05)
• How do we come together in “healthy” (ethical) cults/communitas? Collective coherence (08:02)
• The Lucifer effect in “culty” cults and the golden shadow (17:12) 
• Jerry Garcia channeling quicksilver starlight: what was that? (25:21) 
• Peak experience technologies need to be scalable and open source (26:43)
• The Quaker influence (27:47)
• What is group coherence? Something happens when we sync humans together. (30:23)
• What is the non-corporeal information and inspiration layer that people access in their breakthroughs and how do we get there? (31:25)
• What’s next for humanity? A new operating level: a transrational space (33:00)
• Letting the mystery stay the mystery and premature cognitive commitment (41:23)
• Radical hope and the courage of mice (and men) (43:01)
• The future of humanity: soul force or bust (45:01)

Resources & References - Part 2

• Jamie Wheal, Recapture the Rapture*
• Huston Smith, religious scholar, Cleansing the Doors of Perception*
• The Ten Ox Herding Pictures from the Zen tradition
• Hafiz, “A Hole in a Flute,” The Gift*
• JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings*

Ep. 58 (Part 1 of 3) | Michael Murphy, author, co-founder of the world-famous Esalen Institute, and pioneer of the Human Potential Movement starting in the 60s, relates a wealth of intimate experience, knowledge, and wisdom covering his decades of living at the leading edge of transformative practice and the realization of human potential. Mike talks about Esalen’s latest research, our current crisis of belief, and the anchoring question that has guided Esalen (and Mike) all along: how best to serve? Mike has watched the developmental process of transformative practices themselves, such as somatics and psychedelics, now circling around after a period of purgation, and talks about current efforts to add research on the mystical and the ecstatic to meditation and mindfulness research in order to better understand what's going on. 

This podcast is a wonderful mix of tales from the past—including Mike and his wife Dulce’s achievements and adventures with Soviet-American citizen diplomacy towards the end of the Cold War—the present, and what’s coming up at the Esalen research center now, e.g., asking what is happening on "the other side," and discovering the truth about subtle body phenomena. On a personal note, Mike shares about practicing agnosticism, his respect and admiration for the quality of wonder, and about the magic of reading subtle cues and being increasingly in tune with “the algorithms of his heart.” Friendly, relaxed, and humorous, Mike is one of the world’s leading lights on self-transformation. Recorded on February 16, 2022.

“With Esalen, life has given me this marvelous laboratory.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Michael Murphy, Human Potential Movement pioneer, author, co-founder and director of Esalen Institute, co-creator of Integral Transformative Practice (01:20)
• Esalen’s “scouring of the Shire” (05:51)
• Forging a deeper marriage of the two parts of Esalen: public programming & the Center for Theory & Research (07:19)
• The realization that atman = Brahman and how Michael came to be a yogi (08:29)
• The anchoring vision and worldview of Esalen: evolutionary panentheism, embracing the whole in an evolving world (11:33) 
• Our current crisis of belief: living between the death of the old gods and the birth of new gods has prompted more conflict, more divergences than ever before (16:37)
• How best to serve? Should Esalen continue? Most transformative practices (like somatics and psychedelics) have had to go through a period of purgation and are now coming back into play (21:34)
• The explosion of psychedelics in the 1960s through the psychedelic renaissance today and owning the immensity of its shadow side (27:47)
• Tanya Luhrmann, critical of the unwarranted hegemony of modern Buddhist influence on meditation research, researches contemplative, transformative, yogic, shamanic practices, including the evangelical Vineyard Movement (33:14)
• Tanya is now studying the uniqueness of people who have attended Esalen (37:28)
• On absorption capacity, its differentiating effects on our evolutionary capacities, and the concept of porosity, an attribute involving both the sensory and the extrasensory domain (38:29)  

Resources & References – Part 1

Ep. 69 (Part 3 of 3) | Corey deVos is the heart and center of Integral Life, the organization that revolves around the work of Ken Wilber. Corey became passionate about Integral Theory at the age of 19, and in this lively conversation, he is clearly every bit as passionate about the actuality and the promise of Integral today. Here, Corey gives a terrifically lucid explanation of what the term Integral encompasses: a stage of psychological development, a description of Ken Wilber’s life’s work, and a comprehensive map that comes alive for people, guiding their way and making sense out of enormously complex issues. Corey also describes Integral as a gateway between two massive phases in human history—the “adolescent” phase of collective development now starting to fall behind us and an integrated phase quite possibly ahead.

Corey infuses the complex topics under discussion—the Integral metatheory, social issues that never seem to get resolved, human evolution itself—with optimism and enthusiasm, clarity and light, a testament to his own embodiment of Integral consciousness. At Integral Life, Corey co-hosts The Ken Show (with Ken Wilber), applies Integral to social issues like racism and justice in his podcast series, and excels at finding creative ways of translating the complexities of Integral Theory into easy-to-understand nuggets of information. This conversation is a brilliant, beautiful illumination of the Integral vision, covering how Integral has evolved and describing what it can do for our future. Recorded on November 10, 2022.

“The more we can make room for each other’s perspective…that’s how you go about solving the kind of political tribalization and polarization that is so prominent today.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 3

• The early days of Integral after the end of its “dark ages” (01:50)
• What was Integral Naked exactly? (03:18)
• Robb Smith takes over the leadership of Integral Life (06:16)
• The early days conversations are as relevant today as when they were recorded (08:57)
• The evolution of Integral Life, what’s going on now: political sensemaking, intra personal development, live community practice groups, and much more (10:08)
• Corey’s development of trust and confidence doing the work: from instrument to symphony (15:50)
• Carrying on the flame that was ignited by Ken Wilber (20:30)
• The curse of Ken Wilber is being born ahead of his time (22:04)
• What is most exciting to Corey right now? Taking Integral ideas and expressing them artistically with woodwork (24:41)
• Where is Integral headed? As the framework is applied in the world, it’s going to start generating real impact (28:25)
• Integralists are growing up, cleaning up, and now is the time for a collective “showing up” (30:51)

Resources & References – Part 3

• Alex Gray, visual artist known for creating spiritual & psychedelic paintings
• Robert Kegan, developmental psychologist, author of The Evolving...

Ep. 100 (Part 1 of 2) | With extraordinary joyfulness and verve, Native American shaman Charles Lawrence tells the inspiring and fascinating tale of how as a young man, he left psychology, religion, and the white man’s domesticated world in the dust when he became initiated on his journey by mythologist Joseph Campbell, and a paranormal world opened its doors. “If you have a destiny, you better go gracefully, or you’ll get dragged by your heels,” Campbell told him. Indeed, to this day, now in his late 80s, Charles follows the call to ceremonies and Elder Councils all over the world, sharing his sacred shamanic energy and wisdom in blessing and benefit for all. Part Blackfoot by origin, Charles was baptized by traditional Hopi Elders, adopted by elders of Lakota and Coast Salish (Musqueam band), and acknowledged and accepted by Native American tribes and Indigenous Peoples near and far. Here, Charles transmits his love of life, his fearlessness around death, and his easy familiarity with the multidimensionality of existence, the limitlessness in every moment. “Is there joy in this moment in time?” he asks. “If not, why not?”

In regard to our collective future, Charles tells us that solutions await us beyond our normal consciousness; in relation to our personal yearning, he describes the transformative power of being seen, being witnessed for who we are at the deepest level, to free our souls and break out of the box. He urges us to sing, to dance, and to “cry our own cry.” (“Nobody has your cry, your experience. You’ve got to cry your own cry.”) Charles also shares his liberating approach to death (“Dying is simple, just pull out the clutch and go into neutral!”), about how he acquired “death medicine,” a wonderful ability to help people make the transition, and his own death medicine practice. One cannot help but be thoroughly inspired and reinvigorated listening to Charles—as Roger wrote him afterwards, “You left a legacy of joy in all of us. I will sing and laugh more and open the door wider to Mystery because of it. And try to practice my last 10 breaths.” Recorded June 1, 2023.

“What is it that’s just waiting at any moment to burst out of us in joy?“

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing psychologist and Native American shaman Charles Lawrence (01:04)
• How Charles left Western psychology & religion behind in the dust, beginning with his meeting mythologist Joseph Campbell and the opening of several paranormal doors (02:33)
• Living your destiny: follow the guidance, the intuition, whatever shows up (06:42)
• Native American wisdom has much medicine for us today; the knowing that everything is sacred (08:02)
• The Native American attunement to nature, sense of interconnection, and knowing that elders are to be revered contrasts sadly with our present culture (10:11)
• Charles’ call to meet Wallace Black Elk and his wife, Grace Spotted Eagle (12:17)
• Indigenous people’s special lens on reality and the death medicine tradition of the Ojibwe (14:23)
• Charles’ first Vision Quest in the Rockies while still a newbie (16:51)
• The Ghost Dance, the legend of the Broken Hoop, and inquiring into what would happen if we started gathering together again: weaving the basket of connection (19:10)
• How John came to travel with Wallace Black Elk, a man of connection and love with all beings...

Ep. 71 (Part 2 of 3) | Nicholas Hedlund & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens are big picture philosophers with extraordinary big hearts as well as big minds, dedicated to understanding how consciousness, culture, and nature relate to each other, and to forging a path for the Earth and civilization to flourish rather than fall apart. In this dialogue, the world of metatheories comes alive with urgent, purposeful meaning, because as Sean and Nick point out, integrative metatheories like Ken Wilber’s integral theory and Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism are the only tools that provide a useful framework for us to talk about and confront the vast web of interrelated and wicked problems we face on every level at this time. Now, we are only just beginning to understand the nature of the metacrisis—how the external crises are driven by interior crises of sensemaking and meaning making—but how do we bring everyone to the table to find solutions? How do we get the wisdom of these approaches to bear upon the crises we face? 

It turns out that heart connection—love, caring, and being willing to listen and to change—is a crucial, key ingredient for us to move forward in a positive way. Nick and Sean express both heartbreak and wild enthusiasm—heartbreak that our entire planetary community is so threatened and we have only a small window of time (till 2030) to transform our consciousness and culture into taking a cooperative and reverent approach to life, and enthusiasm to be alive at this pivotal time where everything hangs in the balance. Recorded December 7, 2022.

“We really need both—we need big Heart to connect and be friends with each other and love each other and we need that in equal measure to big Mind.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• The difference between dialogue and debate: being willing to have one’s mind changed and opening up the opportunity for real dialogue (01:23)
• The critical reality principle/truth that we all share one world (03:07)
• The call to evolve together and mature spiritually (05:14)
• Reasons to be optimistic and reasons to be concerned about what lies ahead: the metacrisis will be a developmental catalyst for some but not all (07:33)
• The integral ecology mantra: things are getting better, things are also getting worse, and the eternal nature of perfection (09:33) 
• How can we speak to the fears of the people? The failure of liberal globalism, the rise of conservatism, and the search for higher political ground (12:01)
• Learning to listen to reality itself and what is being communicated by the profound intelligence of nature (15:03)
• What steps can we take to contribute to the full system reboot that is needed now? Cultivating the reverent heart sensibility (21:15)
• Applying big picture maps to addressing aspects of the metacrisis: six qualities pointing to the ways in which we need to be connected in order to make any progress (22:56) 
• How can we all be friends? Cultivating filia, connecting heart to heart, is the secret ingredient to the success of long term collaboration (28:11)
• How do we scale heart connection among humans? (35:43)
• We need more expressive capacity as a humanity, which metatheories can help us with (37:47)

Resources & References – Part 2

Ep. 114 | Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson is astonishing in her openness, authenticity, and candor in this moving conversation that enlightens on a spiritual level as well as a political one. First, we learn why she is running for president, and how she thinks she can help America. As Marianne explains it, her talent lies in translating what is happening so people can grasp the full picture. “Everybody sees it,” she says, talking about our money-driven culture and corrupt political system, “but not everybody can put the pieces together.” She adds that if people were to fully understand what is going on, it would create a space for transformation to occur. Marianne’s remarkable ability to consider all sides of an issue and look beyond symptoms to the root cause of some of our greatest problems is also evident, from calling on liberals to assume their share of responsibility for allowing this country to decline morally in the way that it has to her understanding of the political and psychological forces driving the Israel-Hamas war.

More than a political talk, Marianne reveals a psychological and spiritual portrait of the United States, referencing the brilliant vision of our founding fathers, Martin Luther King’s goal of Beloved Community, and telling a stirring story of the way Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration reflects the high morality of the populace at that time. On a personal level, Marianne’s uncompromising path towards growth and transformation is both clear and inspiring—she talks about the importance of taking 100% responsibility for one’s experience, about practicing what you preach, living a life of service, and the reality of love. The only thing that is missing from any situation, Marianne tells us, is what we can do about it. Recorded January 9, 2024.

“We don’t need just another technocrat or political car mechanic…we’re on the wrong road.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps

• Introducing bestselling author and 2024 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson (01:10)
• On the importance of practicing what you preach, living a life of service (02:06) 
• We’re living in a very mean-spirited time: people smear, lie, and ruin others very casually (03:50)
• The division now is more between decent and indecent than left and right (04:55)
• The effects of social media and the argument Trump created of “why not?” Now everything is a mud bath (06:18)
• The commodification of our culture: everybody sees it (07:06)
• Marianne is running for president because she can translate what’s happening to people, thereby creating a space where things can actually transform (07:58)
• The lack of values we need to concern ourselves with is neoliberalism—by our own passive permission, we are on some level acquiescing, making way for demagogues (10:17)
• We made a businessman (Trump) a god and now we see the consequences (13:44)
• The American people are not the problem (15:22)
• Take 100% responsibility for your experience or you won’t be able to change it (16:45)
• Running for president, waking up to the ugliest things you can imagine, has been Marianne’s greatest spiritual crucible: what an opportunity to forgive herself and others (18:31)
• How Marianne addresses symptoms and problems but also their...

Ep. 89 (Part 1 of 2) | Award-winning educator and activist Shakil Choudhury is the author of the outstanding book Deep Diversity: A Compassionate, Scientific Approach to Achieving Racial Justice, and in this potent conversation we learn a lot we perhaps didn’t know about the psychological, emotional, and neurobiological reasons for our ingrained biases, and the systemic bias in the culture at large. How and why do we discriminate? Many of our biases are hidden in the unconscious, which makes it that much harder to bring them into the light so we can begin to understand what’s going on and find ways to move ourselves and society toward justice and equity. Shakil explains that changing societal norms is at the heart of the battle for racial and social justice, as our habitual cultural behaviors tend to be viewed as legitimate, normal, and natural, when actually they may be outdated, off base, offensive, and unjust. Shakil deftly lines us out with specific steps we can take to recognize and change our own behaviors, as well as actions organizational leaders can take to effect change on a broader level.

Shakil contends that educating people to become diversity and equity literate is the first essential step, and the 360-hour program he has designed to this end has proven very effective. Once people see the data, they cannot help understanding the drivers of racial and social injustice more clearly, which leads to the place where real transformation can happen. Shakil’s extraordinarily insightful and illuminating approach is fueled by many years of contemplative practice, and he leaves us with a vision of what we are fighting for—not just what we are fighting against—based on Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of Beloved Community. Small groups of dedicated people have managed to successfully nudge societal norms in the direction of justice in the past, and this conversation and Shakil’s book, Deep Diversity, most certainly contribute a compassionate nudge in the right direction. Bit by bit, recognizing that this is a journey, Shakil conveys both the means and the hope that justice will prevail. Recorded April 26, 2023.

“Can we hold the tension between our common humanity and our differences simultaneously?”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Shakil Choudhury, award-winning educator, racial justice & equity activist, author of Deep Diversity (01:17)
• How did Shakil come to create this “deep diversity” approach to racial justice and equity work? (02:15)
• Shakil’s healing journey: finding inner freedom, the world began to look different (03:16)
• The historical and sociological perspectives help us understand how we got here but it’s the emotional and psychological perspectives that can help us understand why we do what we do (05:38)
• The unconscious role of emotions, bias, identity, and power (08:11)
• Cultural diversity, wokeism, ethnocentricity, and how to talk with people at a traditional level of development about racism (10:54)
• How to get the most people on the side of justice? Let’s make it as easy as possible for people: agnosticizing racial justice and equity work (14:37) 
• Racism is a systemic problem: it’s more than hate crimes, the KKK, and neo-Nazis, more than “spot the bigot” (16:27) 
• We have to help people become systems thinkers: the key is pattern recognition...

Ep. 173 (Part 2 of 2) | In this 8th dialogue in the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali gives a clear, colorful description of the three stages we go through on the spiritual path: the journey to presence, the journey with presence, and the journey in presence. “There’s much more to the journey than just being free of suffering,” he says, “in the journey with presence, there’s a whole universe to discover—unexpectedly we find there is a whole realm of splendor, beauty, freedom, and liberation.” In the third journey, the journey in presence, the stage of actualization, we are swimming in the ocean of presence or we are the presence itself. Hameed relates how impeccability, strong and pure like stainless steel, is an important part of actualizing presence, embodying our essence in our daily lives. “The ‘I am’ can function in the world as a person,” he explains, “I can be the vastness, an infinite, black, luminous night, completely formless, but still walk in the street as a person.”

Hameed also talks about the “pearl beyond price”—the individuated self that brings a functional capacity to the isness, which is why it is of incomparable price—and the point of existence, point of light, or pure I-ness. He discusses the individuation of the soul and the realization that the nature of the soul is the nature of everything: this is the nondual experience. This dialogue is another treasure trove of spiritual transmission by Hameed—with humor, clarity, precision, and beautiful metaphor, his teachings, even as deeply profound and mysterious as they are, come as wonderful revelations for us to grasp onto, leading us forward on the inner journey home. Recorded January 3, 2025.

“Presence is the ground of all reality.”

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• What is the I in ‘I am that’? A point of light, presence, existence (00:53)
• I-am-that are three different things (04:25)
• At some point, the point of light and the pearl beyond price become unified (06:56)
• The ego self is insecure: that’s why there is selfishness (09:04)
• With the realization of I am that, the “that” changes (12:30)
• The “I am” can function in the world as a person: I can be the vastness, formless & infinite, but still walk in the street as a person (14:01)
• In the source dimension, all people are nothing but organs of perception for the absolute (15:05)
• What brought Hameed back from the absolute? (17:46)
• Each teaching has their ultimate, but there is more than one ultimate (19:24)
• There’s much more to the journey than just being free of suffering (20:31)
• Ignorance never ends (21:26)
• Is there a best way to study spirituality? (22:57)
• The essentialization of the soul: recognizing that presence is our true nature, essence is a living consciousness (25:21)
• Realizing the ground of being: the nature of the soul is the nature of everything; this is the nondual experience (27:18)
• The issues that come up on the journey: psychodynamic, structural, existential & epistemological (33:17)

Resources & References

• A. H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), founder of The Ridhwan School

Ep. 159 (Part 2 of 2) | In the 5th dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, spiritual teacher and author Hameed Ali discusses the dynamic, ever changing, infinitely creative nature of the universe, and explains that our individual souls are in some sense a microcosm of this energy, with endless potentials and possibilities. We can experience creative dynamism, Hameed says, as “a sense of infinite energy, pulsing and throbbing, where we see the whole universe in continual emergence, every moment new.” Although the soul has boundless potential, we tend to take the limited approach that what we already know is the extent of things; the key to loosening the limits we place upon ourselves is to practice inquiry and remain open to all directions of possibilities. Each individual experiences the dynamism in a different way and expresses the potentiality of reality in a different way, says Hameed. When we are in touch with our true nature, we share in the creativity of the divine. 

In this conversation, Hameed also talks about death: how we can be curious about it, how it is the ultimate in finality, one more possibility of reality, and that he doesn’t presume to know it, only that true nature is the source of time and does not die. Life can be experienced like a fountain rather than a flowing river, Hameed relates. And the more our ego structures are released, the more we can open to its beautiful array of endless possibilities. Another profoundly intriguing, subtly humorous, and absolutely enlightening conversation with Hameed Ali. Recorded October 10, 2024.

“We are thoughts in the mind of God, but God’s thoughts are not like human thoughts, they are creations.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Ordinary knowledge is a subset of basic knowledge, which is implicit in the beingness of what is manifesting; spirituality has to do with basic knowledge (00:59) 
• What Hameed would like to add to the theory of evolution (04:47)
• It is possible for the soul to know itself; nothing else we achieve in life will bring total fulfillment (07:44) 
• The logos is manifesting the potential of reality; part of this potential is for true nature to know itself through the organs of perception of the individual soul (10:06)
• The human being is designed to fill its purpose, but when you get into true nature, purpose doesn’t apply (12:08)
• Beyond Maslow’s motivation of self-transcendence: selfless service, transpersonal spontaneity, and the motivation to go beyond what we know (15:14)
• What about death? Nothing else has the finality of death (21:39)
• True nature doesn’t die; it is the source of time, pure timelessness (24:35)
• Dogen drops causality: ash is ash, wood is wood; life is life, death is death (26:48)
• Death is another possibility of reality (29:06)
• Experiencing life as a fountain rather than a flowing river (31:51)
• The more ego structures are released, the more we open to a beautiful array of possibilities & potentials (36:29)
• The ego is not false, it’s just limited (40:12)
• What the human being is free to actualize is to be open to all directions of possibilities (41:16)

Resources & References – Part 2

Ep. 161 (Part 2 of 2) | In this profoundly moving and inspiring conversation, GRIP Training Institute CEO, Kim Moore, and facilitator/trainer Fateen Jackson, Sr., also a GRIP graduate, educate us as to the power and magic of the GRIP prison movement, based on Jacques Verduin’s model: Leaving Prison Before You Get Out. This yearlong trauma healing and accountability program is unique in the degree of radical transformation it aims for—and delivers. It is about freeing minds, and as Kim points out, goes beyond the duality of teacher/student, inmate/not inmate, victim/offender to where everyone joins in a mutual journey of healing, transformation, and liberation.The program is so transformative that ripple effects from GRIP students can be felt throughout the prison, and GRIP graduates often struggle with how little emotional intelligence and trauma healing work the rest of us have done when they get out.

Kim and Fateen shine a bright light on the inestimable value of a caring, compassionate community, pointing out that deep personal transformation and taking responsibility doesn’t happen in isolation. They share illuminating stories of their own experiences, and the dedication and gladness they exude in this talk is itself impactful and inspiring. There is something in this conversation, maybe because it touches our deepest brokenness and then lifts it up and redeems it, that reaches right into one’s heart and infuses it with inspiration, hope, compassion, and love. Recorded November 21, 2024.

“Who have you left out of your heart? How can you expand your sphere of human concern?”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Roger acknowledges the power of GRIP’s processes (01:20)
• What are the most impactful processes that participants go through? (02:18)
• Transforming shame into remorse: you are not your crime (05:17)
• The importance of self-care for facilitators: what practices do Kim & Fateen do? (06:39)
• Reminding participants who they truly are: you can give love and you can receive love (10:36) 
• Moving beyond the duality of giver/receiver, victim/offender, teacher/student (12:31) 
• Transforming belief systems: You are not in prison because of what you did, but because you believed the thoughts that justified the actions you took (14:06) 
• A longing to hear a genuine apology (16:40)
• Opening your heart to every offender, no matter what they’ve done (18:25)
• The transformational power of this work: engendering hope, compassion, redemption, wisdom (21:22)
• GRIP graduates struggle with how little emotional intelligence and trauma healing work the rest of us have done when they get out (24:25)
• Can people accept that you are a changed, transformed individual? (25:03)
• The diversity of this program: everyone is welcome, everyone learns from everyone else (26:29)
• Meditation: stopping the violence with awareness (29:40)
• The wisdom that is born in these groups goes way beyond prison (32:56)
• If you would like to be part of the GRIP family (34:12)
• What is the vision for GRIP’s future? GRIP’s scaling strategy; connecting with incoming lifers from day one...

Ep. 5 (Part 1 of 2) | In this inspiring and empowering conversation, Rick Hanson spells out how we can use positive, self-directed neuroplasticity to hardwire our brains in order to become happier, cultivate virtues, deal with cravings, become deeply grounded, turn our desired states into stable traits, and more. Neurodharma is Rick’s conceptual creation: a marriage of neuroscience, psychology, and contemporary wisdom that offers individuals who are out to make a change for the better an impressive and effective brain hacking toolkit. Rick’s own gentle wisdom, compassion, clarity, kindness, and humor shine in this truly groundbreaking (for most of us) dialogue, making him a wonderful exemplar of the peaceful, loving, altruistic, and effective person practicing neurodharma can help us to become. Recorded September 20, 2021.

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is an expert on positive neuroplasticity, a clinical psychologist, a New York Times best-selling author, and a Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. His books include Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture, and have been published in 30 languages. He has lectured at NASA, Google, Oxford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. Rick's work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, NPR, and other major media. He began meditating in 1974 and is the founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. Rick loves wilderness and taking a break from emails.

Topics & Timestamps - Part 1

• Introducing Rick Hanson: kindness, books, philanthropy, forging the discipline of neurodharma (01:50)
• What are Rick’s most important takeaways from his life’s work? (05:35)
• Frictionless contentment: grounding unshakeable happiness in the body (05:52) 
• We have the power to use our mind (direct our mental activity) to sustain lasting changes in the brain and we cannot escape the responsibility for using (or not using) this (08:41)
• Why do we need neuroscience when meditation does this anyway? (11:34)
• 3 benefits of grounding our practice in neuroscience (13:08)
• To provide sustained motivation (13:17)
• Gives us a common framework of enquiry that helps us operationalize when we’re doing our practices (13:56)
• Highlights the tools that correlate to each individual’s highest priority so they can zero in on what matters the most (15:05)
• Our brain’s negativity bias (16:26) 
• How tuning into internal sensations helps steady our mind, stabilize attention, and pull us into the present (17:20)
• Helps identify new methods like neurofeedback (21:10)
• Knowing we are hard-wired to focus on negative experiences helps our own inner work, reducing guilt and extending our compassion (23:08)
• The challenge of stabilizing altered states into enduring traits (24:54)
• How to address craving: building the enduring trait of open-heartedness in the present using neuroplastic change (27:41)
• How do we anchor this? Rick leads a micro samadhi concentration practice (34:32)
• Deliberately resting in the felt sense of nothing wrong steepens your growth curve (41:31)
• Many of the beneficial traits we want to grow in ourselves involve states that aren’t actually that enjoyable. (44:55)

Resources & References - Part 1

• Rick Hanson, author of 

Ep. 115 (Part 1 of 3) | Brad Reynolds, author of Embracing Reality: The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber and Where’s Wilber At? Ken Wilber’s Integral Vision in the New Millennium, gives us a beautiful distillation of Ken Wilber’s work, starting from the beginning and spanning decades. Not only does Brad elegantly relate the major themes of Ken’s work, he also makes clear the value of Ken’s contributions—the way this knowledge can be understood and applied to literally expand our notion of reality and evolve our consciousness. Brad deftly leads us through the subjects that Ken has developed: the spectrum of consciousness, the integration of science and religion, transcending and including what has come before, the importance of the transpersonal, and much more. We learn why Ken’s teachings are timeless and also so relevant and important today.

Brad’s scholarship, his own spiritual practice and insight, his engaging, easygoing style, and the close working relationship he had with Ken for many years make this podcast a goldmine for learning the essence of Ken’s theories, for deepening our appreciation of the magnitude of Ken’s understanding, and above all, the topics covered here point the way for us to evolve as human beings. We come to understand that integral is much more than a theory: it’s a practice, a call to grow and transcend, to become more inclusive, more responsive—to live our true potential. Brad eloquently brings it home just how much we need integral thinkers and leaders right now, with regressive developmental trends on the rise. Especially pertinent in our polarized society, integral shows us how to take all that is valuable within ostensibly conflicting worldviews and integrate it for the benefit of all. Recorded January 3, 2024.

“Ken’s theory is based upon the reality of his transpersonal awareness—in other words, it’s based upon practice.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing author Brad Reynolds, who has synthesized Ken Wilber’s life work in his book Embracing Reality (01:01)
• What led to getting involved with Ken Wilber? How Ken treated the subject of human evolution with extraordinary depth to include stages of development and the contributions of mystical traditions (03:16)
• Ken’s teachings are timeless partly because he encourages people to take up spiritual practice—something that will always be very important (10:57) 
• What are Ken’s main contributions? Evolution and development of consciousness using a spectrum model (12:55)
• Using psychedelics as an entheogen in the 70s: trying to understand the manifold secrets of spirituality (13:32)
• Ken’s pre-trans fallacy is an excellent critique of scientific materialism, modernity & postmodernity, exploring the development of mysticism and having it transcend and include rational, magical & mythical thinking (17:57)
• The beauty of using the spectrum model (21:56)
• How our center of gravity influences us and the attractor aspect of higher levels of development that awaken us to new possibilities (23:28)
• Ken’s Phase 1: The spectrum of consciousness, how different psychologies and contemplative traditions address different levels of the spectrum (25:01)
• Ken’s Phase 2: The evolution revolution and Ken’s satori experience that the entire spectrum itself is grounded in divine consciousness...

Ep. 166 (Part 1 of 2) | In the 7th dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali enlightens us as to the nature of presence. Our path begins with the recognition that spirit is presence, he explains, an insight which all spiritual traditions share; this is where most of their focus lies. But this is not the end of the story, Hameed tells us—discovering spirit is only half the work. The other half is actualizing presence by clarifying and purifying our souls. Presence works as an agent of transformation in this process; appearing in our souls as curiosity and a love of truth, it leads us home. The discussion turns to virtues, the fruition of realization, and how it is that realized teachers can behave in entirely unethical ways: “realization is no guarantee of ethical behavior.”

This conversation is packed with insights regarding many related topics: how ethics most importantly concern our relations with others, that kindness becomes spontaneous for the true master, the distinction between universal grace and specific grace, how inner spaciousness or emptiness is the other side of the coin from presence or fullness, and the question arises, “Why is it that some people are interested in going deeper and others not?” Hameed also speaks of his own experience of unilocal realization, where all time and space are found in the center of the heart and accessing information from the future is possible. It is not so much I am this or that, he says, it’s simply I am. This warm, illuminating discussion has a fascinating flow and sparks many instances of quiet laughter on all sides. Recorded December 12, 2024.

“Presence is both the inner nature and the elixir of transformation.”

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing the 7th dialogue in the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (01:01)
• The basic spiritual insight common to all schools is the recognition of what spirit is: a palpable presence, a substrate of all reality (01:37)
• The path begins with recognizing presence and then goes on (03:49)
• Presence is being, the way we experience our true nature (05:55)
• Exploring the essential qualities of the soul is an important tool to expose and dissolve components of the ego (07:55)
• Recognizing true nature doesn’t mean we express it in our life (09:09)
• Discovering spirit is only half the work, the other half is purifying the soul (10:50)
• Great traditions don’t get into actualization; psychology is what allowed us to develop practices like inquiry that help to release ego structures (13:02)
• How realized teachers can be angry, or sadistic (17:18)
• Animal soul, human soul, angelic soul: most of us operate from the animal soul (19:40)
• Working on character (21:43)
• Realization and teaching skill are quite different (23:36)
• There’s no guarantee a realized person will behave ethically (27:01)
• Virtues are the impact of spiritual presence on the soul (28:17)
• An important part of ethical behavior is in relationship (28:59)
• “Objective conscience” supports us in living a life of truth (29:22)
• Liberation is different from realization; with liberation there are no imprints of time left in you (32:38)
• The inner child is an imprint of the past, the structure doesn’t last (33:45)
• Getting beyond victimhood (34:44)
• Guilt versus true sorrow (36:12)

Resources & References – Part 1

Ep. 56 (Part 3 of 3) | A frank, hard-hitting conversation with TV producer David Riordan about the dangers democracy faces in this country, the fact that we are in a state of transition whether we like it or not, and the power of shifting our narratives to create change and a sustainable future. David has long been fascinated by the power of story, and has set up Vital Signs of Democracy, a platform that tracks and analyzes the narratives told and reported in the U.S. today—narratives that are foundational to our culture, our culture wars, our politics, and our future. 

Is there hope for American democracy? The good news is that studies show 65-70% of the population actually agree on and support the core principles of democracy—so if we could shift our narrative to reflect the majority view, we might be okay. The other news is that neither democrats or republicans, MAGA conservatives or progressives, have stepped up to represent this majority. David explains that we urgently need an alternative narrative from what we have to move forward—and we all need to ask what kind of country we want America to be. Recorded November 16, 2022 (on the heels of the 2022 midterm elections).

“If you don’t like the story that’s driving you, you can change it.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 3

• Mediation: asking both sides, what are you willing to live with? (01:18)
• Why do democracies fail? (03:15)
• The frailties of democracies and the susceptibility to demagogues (04:57)
• Can post post-progressives sort out the conversation? (05:51)
• Capitalism has blown through its own guardrails: historically when wealth is in the hands of as little as 0.5% of the people, violent change is coming (10:23)
• The US is transitioning from a white-dominated culture to a multicultural population: can that kind of cultural transition happen peacefully? (13:42)
• We need an alternative narrative, a stakeholder economy rather than capitalism’s winner-take-all approach that has 99.5% of the wealth consolidated in the hands of the very few (17:02) 
• Creating a more generative approach to the distribution of wealth requires re-thinking the meaning of success (25:49) 
• Rewarding people for putting money back into the system instead of for keeping it all to themselves (27:59)
• What can one person do? Can the way we talk and the way we listen change things? (31:49)
• We can vote, support candidates financially, and volunteer for a campaign: is this enough at this point in time? (36:09)
• Vital Signs of Democracy is designed to answer the question, “Am I crazy to think our democracy is in extreme danger?” (41:56)
• Do the 2022 midterm election results mean democracy is safe? (43:51)
• What Vital Signs of Democracy can do for you (46:09)
• Are you willing to move outside of your comfort zone and address the serious problems democracy faces? (49:54)

Resources & References – Part 3

• Diane Musho Hamilton, award-winning mediator, author, Zen teacher, 

Ep. 2 (Part 2 of 2) | A candid conversation with endearing, brilliant, and optimistic Integral pundit Jeff Salzman of The Daily Evolver podcast, ranging from global current events to personal spiritual turning points. This talk delves into culture wars, polarization, discernment versus condemnation, how our psychological development determines political attitudes and values, and how Integral perspectives help us understand them all.

Jeff Salzman is a current events junkie who delights in interpreting emerging politics and culture through a lens of consciousness evolution, presented in his lively and informative podcast, The Daily Evolver. For three years, Jeff worked with Ken Wilber in developing the Integral Institute and their historic seminars on integral application in business, psychology, and spirituality. Jeff is also on the board of philosopher Steve McIntosh’s think tank, The Institute for Cultural Evolution, and co-founder of CareerTrack Training, an adult education company. A long-time practitioner in several spiritual traditions, Jeff has taught meditation and led many retreats. He has a master’s degree in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism from Naropa University.

Topics & Timestamps - Part 2

• Afghanistan best case scenario and Integral fundamentalism (00:52)
• All fear drops in the new developmental tier (03:38)
• On integrating multiple perspectives; cultivating discernment and fostering acceptance simultaneously (05:32)
• How mindfulness practice can go bad (10:52)
• Peter Levine and somatic releasing: spiritual practice alone doesn’t do it (13:04)
• Finding God, faith, a don’t know space, 2nd person practice (13:47)
• On being in the zone and Ken Wilber’s early flow days (24:21)
• The practice of remembering God (27:12)
• Making friends with death (31:36)
• How Ken Wilber’s Integral illuminates reality (33:17)
• Current metatheories and the developmental lens (39:08)
• One’s own suffering becomes a portal into the suffering of others: the Bodhisattva aspiration (46:51)
• Physical body, energetic body, spiritual body (51:11)

Resources & References - Part 2

• Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion: West and East, Vol II*
• Dan Lawton, When Buddhism Goes Bad
• Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger*
• Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled*
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow*
• Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass*
• Rabbi Meshulam Zusha of Anapoli

Ep. 144 (Part 2 of 2) | In the second A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series conversation, Hameed Ali describes how the practice of inquiry can aid us on our spiritual journey, illuminating our understanding of our personal experience and our soul. He uses the example of inquiring into a sense of worthlessness to illustrate what happens as we begin to investigate the terrain of our consciousness. There comes a point when the inquiry leads beyond where a psychologist would normally end—when it slips from psychological into spiritual inquiry. “If you stay with the wounding, something will emerge: a sense of inherent value. You recognize ‘I am presence’ and this presence has value—all the way to nondual presence and beyond.” 

In introducing us to the Diamond Approach’s inquiry technique, Hameed covers a rich array of topics: the dynamism of consciousness; the importance of scientific objectivity in our exploration of inner experience; modern psychology’s revelation of how our sense of self develops; the essential qualities of curiosity and love of truth; and how understanding the ways in which the past influences the present disentangles it. Hameed is a masterful teacher—with just a few words he can illuminate vast territories of spiritual landscape for the purpose of helping his students learn to live their lives from a deeper, liberated condition. Rather than aiming to transcend our experience, Hameed assures us there is a way through, an unraveling we can do, as we discover never-ending realizations about individual consciousness and the nature of reality. Recorded July 4, 2024.

“The soul is a living embodiment of the life force.” 

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Basic trust: fundamentally we are an indestructible nature, but our basic trust can get whittled away (00:50)
• Feeling the love inherent to reality (05:27)
• Marrying ancient knowledge of the soul with advancements in modern psychology (06:09) 
• Psychology provides us with answers about how our sense of self develops but not about what gets structured—the soul (09:35)
• Individual consciousness is impressionable, otherwise learning would not be possible (12:31)
• The self is nothing but the soul structured through the ego stages of development (14:28)
• Psychodynamics and the self-liberating quality of the soul (15:29)
• We need our sense of self in order to survive—and in order to become become illuminated, we need a body (17:21)
• To stay with the ego self is arrested development, but we can develop further to become conscious of consciousness itself (19:53)
• We can understand the terrain of experience rather than simply transcend it—we can go through it, unravel it, and open up different dimensions of reality as we go (21:40)
• As we inquire we go deeper, bringing liberation into ordinary life (24:58)
• The emphasis in the East is on liberation—the emphasis in the West is on how to fulfill life (26:06)
• What many nondual teachings don’t understand is the individual soul (27:14)
• The enlightenment drive: motivation beyond ego (30:38)
• Beyond the enlightenment drive: pure being coming through individual consciousness (34:45)

Resources & References – Part 2

Ep. 135 (Part 1 of 2) | Criminal justice professor and constitutional law expert Mark Fischler does a brilliant job of deepening our understanding of the challenges facing our democracy, our legal system, and our public morality. How did the democratic process and the values it represents—equality and liberty for all—come to be teetering on the brink? Mark illuminates the fact that the Constitution is not a set-in-stone document, but eminently open to interpretation, and explains that its interpretation is a direct reflection of the worldviews of the Supreme Court justices. In fact, the whole process of democracy needs to be aligned with a certain level of development in order to deliver. Mark points out that democracy hasn’t served all of us, and urges us to explore who and in what ways it has failed, that we may work to correct its flaws and continue to uphold and expand the values foundational to democracy to include respecting and protecting the rights of all beings.

Mark contrasts the moral integrity of revered public figures such as Socrates and Dr. King, who honored the rule of law despite that it went against their own self interest, with the disregard for the law so prevalent among political figures today, and points out that democracy can be subverted not only by malicious intent, but also by misplaced idealism—when people feel that supporting a charismatic leader or ideology is more important than supporting the principles of democracy. With regard to the Trump trials, the question arises, is any human above the law? Mark also shares where he finds hope—in his own university students with their openness to a deeper ethical understanding and responsibility and willingness to undertake civic action. Mark urges all of us who care about democracy to become engaged now. His wise, integral, highly informed insights about the current state of the legal system and of democracy, here and around the world, are revelatory, alarming, and inspiring in turn. Recorded May 22, 2024.

“Democracy really only functions properly when there is a foundational rule of law.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing criminal justice professor and integral expert on constitutional law, Mark Fischler (01:32)
• The hush money trial: you can’t disengage the politics (03:46)
• Is any human being above the rule of law? (06:16)
• It was ethical Republicans that got Nixon to resign; now a cult-like status exists in the party (07:36)
• How people like Supreme Court Justice Alito’s wife and Justice Thomas’ wife have bought into the Stop the Steal idea, supporting the idea that the 2020 election was false (10:15)
• Impeachment is the most direct form of accountability in the Supreme Court (12:50)
• Understanding the nature of the current Supreme Court and how the Constitution gets interpreted according to the justices’ worldviews (14:12)
• The Citizens United case where the Supreme Court ruled to give corporations the right to freedom of speech (17:31)
• The current Supreme Court is hostile to the Union movement, to regulation around land use, to green, pluralistic values—it’s all about protecting individual rights (20:13)
• The Constitution is not the solid document we might think, but is very open to interpretation (23:35)
• The Federalist Society and the rise of originalism (24:35)
• The...

Ep. 10 (Part 2 of 3) | Cosmological explorer Chris Bache tells what he discovered on his extraordinary journey, doing 73 high-dose LSD sessions over a period of twenty years. Motivated by a passion to find out more about the universe, Chris became intimate with the ocean of suffering in our collective psyche, the death/rebirth cycle, the preciousness of individuality, integrating consciousness at very high levels of energy, and the future of humanity. Chris explains a universal intelligence met him every step of the way. A modern-day Odysseus, who has explored realms far beyond our normal perceptions of reality, Chris’ presence is profoundly compassionate, grounded in a uniquely deep trust in the love and intelligence of the universe. Recorded on October 25, 2021.

Chris Bache, Ph.D. is professor emeritus in the department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University where he taught for 33 years. He is also adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Emeritus Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and on the Advisory Board of Grof Legacy Training. Chris’ passion has been the study of the philosophical implications of non ordinary states of consciousness, especially psychedelic states. An award-winning teacher and international speaker, Chris has written four books: Lifecycles, a study of reincarnation in light of contemporary consciousness research; Dark Night, Early Dawn, a pioneering work in psychedelic philosophy and collective consciousness; The Living Classroom, an exploration of collective fields of consciousness in teaching; and LSD and the Mind of the Universe, the story of his 20-year journey with LSD.

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2

• Individuality is the great beauty. One of the great gifts of the universe. (01:11)
• Awakening to your bond with the universe (06:53)
• Using psychedelics for healing, spiritual awakening, cosmological exploration: You don’t need to shatter time to spiritually awaken (10:21)
• Stabilizing states of consciousness and Chris’ practices today: meditation, the being of practice, grounding (13:51)
• The shift taking place at the collective archetypal level (17:10)
• The death and rebirth of humanity and the emergence of a changed humanity (17:57)
• The global crisis is a crisis of consciousness: growing into our full soul being (19:15) 
• The birth of the future human and the awakening of the soul (25:59)
• Seeing the human transition to come from the place of Deep Time (31:50)
• The sacred question: How can I serve other people and make this knowledge useful to other people? (33:17)
• The transmission and healing that come from deep practice (36:54)
• 7-week online course on Chris’ book: Exploring the Cosmic Mind Through Psychedelics (38:44)
• What has been the reaction to Chris’ book? (39:43)
• Psychedelic therapy (42:02)
• The essential work of integration (43:24)

Resources & References - Part 2

• Ramakrishna, the longing to be separate in order to worship the Mother
• Vedanta, one of six schools of Hindu philosophy, the end of the Vedas
• Chris Bache, 

Ep. 129 (Part 2 of 2) | Environmental philosopher, public health scientist, and corporate malfeasance researcher Dr. Yogi Hendlin is dedicated to understanding, communicating, and addressing the psychological, social, political, and economic barriers that keep us from treading a solid path toward sustainability. One of the areas Yogi is extremely knowledgeable about is the dynamics and drivers of corporate decision making. An underlying belief that the planet is indestructible makes it okay to prioritize profit above global health, or companies may find themselves in a double bind where they would actually prefer to be more strictly regulated but that would mean corporate suicide unless their entire industry was regulated. Interestingly, Yogi has found that learned helplessness operates at all levels of power in inverse relation to actual power and responsibility, citing how some of the most powerful people in the world are saying, “What can I do?” when Indigenous groups with very few resources find ways to thrive in a sustainable way.

Yogi points out that changing the world is not an event but a process—and delves into how we can make real changes to get off the destructive path we are on, overshooting the limits of our biosphere on every metric. We can create circuit breakers for our habitual, counterproductive routines, we can cultivate skillful communication that allows our defense mechanisms to drop away, we can recognize our fundamental need for community and connection, and we can use spiritual practice and psychedelics to help us regain a sense of wonder and reverence for life. Yogi believes that decolonization and creating ecologies of discourse that reward honesty, vulnerability, admitting mistakes, and asking for help is the way forward. This is an earnest, thought provoking, heartfelt, and inspiring discussion of the way things are, the barriers to change, and hope for the future. Recorded January 11, 2024.

“All human beings have a fundamental capacity for change and growth, evolution and divinity.”

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Decolonizing the psychedelic renaissance: protecting the sacraments & cultural traditions that have been part of psychedelic use for millenia (00:45)
• Psychoplastogens and the theory that one can engineer a psychedelic trip to fit a 1-hr therapy session (02:21)
• Ensuring low abuse liability for all our experiences: community and connection are the best way to do this (05:19)
• The skillful use of psychedelics: including them as part of a larger spiritual practice and the trap of thinking the psychedelic is doing “it” (08:25)
• Future holiness: psychedelics can help pull us toward the future we know in our hearts is possible; but there are many spiritual paths to help us evolve (11:29)
• The Buddhist parable of looking for water (14:14)
• Changing the world is much more than just an event (15:45) 
• Our systems are all based on efficiency of the wrong kind—we need to learn how our actions affect others (17:12)
• What are Yogi’s spiritual practices? Vipassana, Buddhist meditation/Taoism, Indigenous practices & ceremonies & more (21:27)
• A lot of people who are challenging dominant narratives feel lonely (25:45)
• Stepping up compassion and learning how to be a better communicator & disarm defense mechanisms in others (29:58)
• Allowing individuals as well as corporations to “save face” (33:11)
• Creating ecologies of discourse: rewarding honesty, vulnerability, and admitting mistakes (33:50)
• The value of systems theory and the need...

Ep. 170 (Part 1 of 2) | An emotionally powerful and deeply inspiring conversation with renowned embodiment and trauma educator Mark Walsh from the U.K. and Ukrainian psychologist and trauma trainer Kristina Obluchynska, where we learn about effective ways of treating trauma in the middle of an ongoing war, what trauma therapists are left holding, and how beautiful is the human spirit when it embraces right action. When Russia commenced its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago, Mark went to Ukraine, located willing psychology students, educated them in body-oriented trauma therapy and training, and with Kristina and several other trainees co-founded Sane Ukraine, with the urgent mission of preventing an epidemic of trauma disorders in Ukraine. Beginning with applying trauma first aid and teaching resilience skills in places like the local railroad station where people were coming in from the front lines, and in bomb shelters, Kristina and several other psychologists have now educated thousands of people about trauma—active duty soldiers, veterans, survivors, wives of combatants, and first-line responders such as doctors, teachers, and social workers—and trained hundreds of them to become trauma trainers themselves. 

It is an honor to bear witness to Mark’s courageous actions and the humble heroism of Kristina and her team in the face of the devastation being leveled on Ukraine and Ukrainians. “We don’t grieve,” Kristina tells us, “because grief comes after safety. We don’t even use the word safe anymore,” she continues, “only relatively safe.” Mark points out that modern warfare is not just running around with guns—drones hunt civilians and if you move, they kill you. “Do we all have PTSD?” the soldiers ask. With Sane Ukraine, there is someone to answer their questions and teach them what they can do to help themselves and each other. Resilience comes from relationship—from connection to self, others, nature, and spirit. Does the concept of post traumatic growth even apply considering the intensity of this war? co-host Roger wonders. At the end of this extraordinary, heartfelt conversation, when asked what we could do to help, Kristina advises, “Help the army. We are talking here about healing, but what we really need is to survive.” Recorded January 9, 2025.

“There is nothing that can prepare human psychology for modern warfare.”

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Mark Walsh, trauma trainer, author, founder & CEO of Embodiment Unlimited, and Kristina Obluchynska, clinical psychologist & trauma therapist, who together co-founded Sane Ukraine to provide training in trauma therapy and resilience skills to professionals, soldiers, combatants’ families and more (01:03)
• What compelled Mark to get involved in Ukraine and found Sane Ukraine? (02:33)
• How did Kristina get involved with Mark’s trauma training? (06:29)
• It requires 3 hours a day of body/mind practice to keep trainees in a state where they can learn something in between running to the bomb shelters (08:30)
• Trauma training started happening in person all over the place: Lviv is now the world’s most trauma-informed city (11:11)
• When Kristina and her team were invited to do combat resilience training, they were told, “We have 2,000 soldiers, please do something for them!” (13:11)
• Training psychologists, social workers, veterans, and wives of combatants (14:01)
• Elements of the 3-day training: tactic, tactic medicine, psychological resilience (15:42)
• Combatants ask, “Do we all have PTSD?” (17:44)
• What are...

Ep. 68 (Part 2 of 3) | Corey deVos is the heart and center of Integral Life, the organization that revolves around the work of Ken Wilber. Corey became passionate about Integral Theory at the age of 19, and in this lively conversation, he is clearly every bit as passionate about the actuality and the promise of Integral today. Here, Corey gives a terrifically lucid explanation of what the term Integral encompasses: a stage of psychological development, a description of Ken Wilber’s life’s work, and a comprehensive map that comes alive for people, guiding their way and making sense out of enormously complex issues. Corey also describes Integral as a gateway between two massive phases in human history—the “adolescent” phase of collective development now starting to fall behind us and an integrated phase quite possibly ahead.

Corey infuses the complex topics under discussion—the Integral metatheory, social issues that never seem to get resolved, human evolution itself—with optimism and enthusiasm, clarity and light, a testament to his own embodiment of Integral consciousness. At Integral Life, Corey co-hosts The Ken Show (with Ken Wilber), applies Integral to social issues like racism and justice in his podcast series, and excels at finding creative ways of translating the complexities of Integral Theory into easy-to-understand nuggets of information. This conversation is a brilliant, beautiful illumination of the Integral vision, covering how Integral has evolved and describing what it can do for our future. Recorded on November 10, 2022.

“The more we can make room for each other’s perspective…that’s how you go about solving the kind of political tribalization and polarization that is so prominent today.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• In appreciation of Ken Wilber’s kindness and generosity (00:48)
• The Integral vision, the concept of “vision-logic,” and the geometry of consciousness (02:23)
• Corey’s creativity using mainstream movie clips to communicate the complexity of each Integral stage of development in a nutshell (05:18)
• How Corey applies Integral to the major social issues of our time (09:21)
• The Integral Justice Warrior series, co-hosted by Mark Fischler and Corey deVos (10:38)
• The Ken Show with Ken Wilber and Corey deVos (13:18)
• The Integral map’s four quadrants explained (14:47)
• The Integral heart is an empathetic heart (18:14) 
• The 8 zones of racism: can we create a frame in which both a “woke” person and a traditional person can find themselves? (20:28)
• How can we talk about systemic racism (or any other issue) from different developmental perspectives and find common ground? (23:22)
• Stumbling our way towards Integral and finding out that the territory is actually real (26:21)
• The evolution of Integral, symbol of wholeness (32:47)
• How Corey came to be knocking on Ken’s door and his intention to create a way for people to become transformed by Integral yet not feel alone in this (34:41)

Resources & References – Part 2

• John Dupuy, Integral Recovery: A Revolutionary Approach to the Treatment of Alcoholism and Addiction*
• Ken...

Ep. 43 (Part 1 of 2) | A.H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), renowned author and co-creator of the Diamond Approach, a complete spiritual path that flows out of his direct personal experience and realization, informed by the great wisdom traditions and practices, describes here his own process of inquiry and some of what he has come to discover in his lifelong pursuit to understand the nature of reality and know the truth. 

Hameed tells us answers come in the form of experiences rather than words and that there is no end to what we can realize about our true nature and reality itself. He talks about experiencing the authentic presence of being; the dynamics of realization; the paradox of practice; the importance of curiosity; and the joy of discovery. What makes time possible and what makes timelessness possible? What happens when we die? Throughout the conversation, Hameed transmits a quiet exuberance, humor, profound wisdom, and deep peace. This is a remarkable, inspiring, sometimes astonishing dialogue that will illuminate and exhilarate your understanding of the nature of reality and our potential as human beings. Recorded August 10, 2022.

“Reality really has much more up its sleeve than any human being can imagine.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1

• Roger introduces Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas) and the Diamond Approach (01:09)
• The practice of direct inquiry into the fundamental nature of reality: the answers come in experiences rather than words (05:10)
• Trusting reality to take us to what is good for us; reality is self revealing (08:14)
• The “paradox of practice”: recognizing our inherent helplessness and hopelessness (10:19) 
• Hameed’s initial opening: recognizing the authentic presence of being (13:06)
• Each awakening has a particular view: nonduality and beyond (15:09)
• Holding on to a view becomes a delusion, regardless of the realization (18:51)
• The “view of totality”: a metaperspective allowing for endless realizations and openings and appreciation of the boundless creativity of the universe (21:37)
• Many teachings are working towards liberation and freedom from suffering, but Hameed “wanted to understand reality and to know the truth” (25:22)
• Enlightenment itself evolves, it keeps moving (28:33)
• The dichotomy between spiritual and material is a construct (35:10)
• Discovery is part of life, part of realization (37:18)
• The completion of realization is going out in the world, learning how to live it (39:04)

Resources & References - Part 1

• Hameed Ali (A.H. Almaas), creator of The Ridhwan School and The Diamond Approach
• A. H. Almaas, Runaway Realization: Living a Life of Ceaseless Discovery*
• A. H. Almaas,The Alchemy of Freedom: The Philosophers’ Stone and the Secrets of...

Ep. 121 (Part 1 of 3) | Joseph Goldstein, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, brilliant spiritual teacher, and prolific author, whose books have been foundational to many people’s understanding of Buddhism, mindfulness, and insight meditation, shares rich nuggets of wisdom stemming from a lifetime of ever-deepening practice. The focus of this conversation remains very much in the present, as Joseph describes how the leading edge of his practice never stops moving forward and how his understanding of the most basic ideas becomes ever more refined and liberating. In sharing his insights, he sheds light on and smooths the path for the rest of us: about the mysterious arising of compassion, made easier the more open we are and the less self-referential, about reframing our experience in a way that frees us, about spontaneous responsiveness, and about awakening being a gradual process—until it’s sudden.

Joseph’s new favorite definition of enlightenment is “lightening up” for the way it conveys a sense of making progress along a journey. And with his humor, humility, and easy, lighthearted manner, Joseph exemplifies and transmits a lighter way of being in the world. He makes it ever so clear that spiritual practice and meditation, examining and investigating our experience moment to moment, naturally leads us to compassionate responsiveness and out of the shackles of what binds us to a self that is ultimately just a construct. Recorded November 2, 2023.

“The fact that liberation is inevitable gives me a lot of joy.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Joseph Goldstein, renowned Buddhist meditation teacher, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, and author of many spiritual books (01:05)
• What’s on the edge for Joseph now? The edge is always about clinging, and as what you cling to changes, the edge changes (03:45)
• Over time, the understanding of mindfulness becomes more and more refined (04:51)
• Joseph’s new favorite definition of enlightenment: lightening up (08:53)
• Don’t waste your suffering! Relate to it with interest (10:58)
• The ultimate reframe: “I” becomes “no-I” (13:44)
• How walking meditation can open us to a vivid experience of selflessness (15:06)
• Our lives are lived in relationship to our overlay on experience, going to the direct experience is itself healing and transformative (18:56)
• The conceptual level lends some sense of permanence but on the level of direct experience, everything changes, nothing is permanent (20:07)
• Clinging to things that are impermanent gives you rope burn (21:44)
• Awakening is always gradual…until it’s sudden: the diminishment of defilements and the uprooting of defilements (22:55)
• Sudden awakening, gradual cultivation, and the necessity to integrate an awakening experience (26:57)
• There are 4 stages of enlightenment because we are not able to open to the magnitude of suffering all at once; we have gone beyond belief in self, but there is still desire, aversion, conceit (31:53)
• Practice is a continual deepening (34:35)

Resources & References – Part 1

• Joseph Goldstein, co-founder 

Ep. 120 (Part 2 of 2) | Many time award-winning poet Jane Hirshfield has spent her life steeped in poetry and spiritual practice. Here, we feel almost as if we’ve been invited into her kitchen to talk about life, love, and especially about poems and how they offer us various answers to the abiding questions: who are we, what are we, what is our relationship to each other, what must we be grateful toward? Jane describes poems as vessels of discovery and poetry as taking your understanding and putting it into a form that is holdable, retrievable, transmissible. Poems can also be keys to unlock our despair, she explains, creating a crack in the darkness, a re-entrance to the possibility of wholeness. Jane’s sublime poetry is many-layered; the same poem might be about human love or peace between nations, about the end of love or the fact that love never dies. Jane shares that her lifetime of questioning (her most recent book of new and selected poetry is titled The Asking) has boiled down to one question: How can I serve?

An awareness of our interconnectedness with all beings, all of life, permeates her work, and Jane is driven to provoke action on contemporary, pressing issues of biosphere, peace, and justice, and help us navigate the tightrope between hope and despair. The conversation also turns to early feminism and the poetry of women mystics that Jane put together in a beautiful anthology called Women in Praise of the Sacred, covering 43 centuries of spiritual poetry by women. When asked about her longtime Zen practice, Jane said, “I needed to become more of a human being, understand a different way of living inside this life I had been given” to become a good poet. She tells us that both poetry and Zen are paths of discovery, exploration, and awareness, and both paths insist that we attend to this world fully. This is a warm, personal, deeply illuminating, and thought provoking conversation, and Jane reads several of her poems, revealing their depth and beauty. Recorded November 30, 2023.

“I don’t want a model of spirituality that excludes other forms of connection. Inclusion is the only path that makes sense.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• How can we become a magnet for creative imagination? (00:49) 
• Artist retreats are the monastery of creativity (03:51)
• How Jane was drawn towards poetry, haiku, and Buddhist understanding early on (07:56)
• In 3-year retreat at Tassajara, writing wasn’t permitted, and how poetry returned after the monastic years (12:40)
• Both poetry and Zen are paths that insist you attend to this world fully (14:12)
• Women poets throughout history and the story of Enheduanna, earliest known poet (18:07)
• Protofeminist movement in the Middle Ages: the Beguines (25:08)
• Reading of Mechthild of Magdeburg’s poem, and how we carry a molecule of divine remembrance with us (26:56)
• Spiritual poems of male and female mystics, are they different? (30:12)
• Poems of the sacred rather than poems of suffering: dark nights of the soul come after moments of awakening as much as before (33:19)
• Spiritual poems often use the language of eros, and how inclusion of all forms of connection is the only path that makes sense (35:01) 
• Women have found their voice…yet women have

Ep. 85 (Part 1 of 2) | Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas), founder of the contemporary spiritual path the Diamond Approach, and author of many outstanding spiritual classics, is writing a trilogy on the subject of love, and in this conversation the focus is on the second book, Nondual Love. Hameed explains that most wisdom traditions target various ultimates: pure emptiness, pure consciousness, nondual awareness, being, non-being—each of which is sufficient for liberation, but fails to include the qualities of nondual love: goodness, sweetness, abundance, benevolence. Hameed brings these dimensions of love to the table, asking what does divine love feel like, look like, what is it made of? 

Listening to Hameed is a beautiful, rich experience, due to his extraordinary lucidity, gentle humor, and the profound understanding and assurance that pervade his words from his long experience swimming in the waters of which he speaks. He tells us we all have the potential to experience nondual love, although there are significant obstacles along the path that are inherent to being human. Hameed describes the different stages of opening to nondual love, from the first glimmerings of “unearthly sweetness” to the realization that we ourselves are love. And he outlines the nature of the barriers we face, like the beast of anger and hatred that arises in us when we perceive that reality has abandoned us. Hameed explains that re-establishing basic trust, feeling the presence of benevolent love, we can regain the sense that things will be okay and unfold ultimately for the good. Recorded April 12, 2023.

“Without love there would be no reason for the universe to exist.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas), spiritual master, creator of the Ridhwan School & Diamond Approach, and Hameed’s new book Nondual Love (01:07)
• What does Hameed mean by nondual love? It’s similar to nondual awareness but it includes the goodness, the sweetness, the heart that is inherent in our spiritual nature (03:00)
• In Plato, the main idea is the good, which is almost synonymous with love (06:05)
• What does divine love feel like? Does it have a color, a texture? (07:57)
• The fundamental benevolence of reality—without love there would be no reason for the universe to exist (09:10)
• The Sufis say, God created the universe out of love so God would be known—known through the human being (10:59)
• Rumi writes all the time about how love and God are inseparable: most poetry, most songs, most literature are about love, but we rarely hear about the very beingness of it (12:30)
• Beyond gratification: for someone who is awakened, the practice of sexual encounter is to bring out more love, the goodness of love (14:24)
• Stages of opening to divine love: our usual understanding of love is limited, but then comes a fullness in our hearts, a softness, an unearthly sweetness (16:47)
• The next stage is recognizing your full heart as just one wave of the ocean of love that comes through your individual heart (20:07)
• The next level is recognizing yourself as the ocean of love: I am love; this is the self-realization of nondual love (20:49)
• Basic trust: feeling the presence of benevolent love tends to evoke trust, a sense that things will be okay and unfold ultimately for the good...

Ep. 70 (Part 1 of 3) | Nicholas Hedlund & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens are big picture philosophers with extraordinary big hearts as well as big minds, dedicated to understanding how consciousness, culture, and nature relate to each other, and to forging a path for the Earth and civilization to flourish rather than fall apart. In this dialogue, the world of metatheories comes alive with urgent, purposeful meaning, because as Sean and Nick point out, integrative metatheories like Ken Wilber’s integral theory and Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism are the only tools that provide a useful framework for us to talk about and confront the vast web of interrelated and wicked problems we face on every level at this time. Now, we are only just beginning to understand the nature of the metacrisis—how the external crises are driven by interior crises of sensemaking and meaning making—but how do we bring everyone to the table to find solutions? How do we get the wisdom of these approaches to bear upon the crises we face? 

It turns out that heart connection—love, caring, and being willing to listen and to change—is a crucial, key ingredient for us to move forward in a positive way. Nick and Sean express both heartbreak and wild enthusiasm—heartbreak that our entire planetary community is so threatened and we have only a small window of time (till 2030) to transform our consciousness and culture into taking a cooperative and reverent approach to life, and enthusiasm to be alive at this pivotal time where everything hangs in the balance. Recorded December 7, 2022.

“We really need both—we need big Heart to connect and be friends with each other and love each other and we need that in equal measure to big Mind.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing philosophers Nicholas Hedlund & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, who coined the term metacrisis (01:30)
• Nick’s mystical experiences early on and awareness of the crisis the Earth is facing led him to find a way to study the big picture beyond the partial perspectives offered in different university departments (02:57)
• For Nick, the metacrisis is connected with his own spiritual path and the questions “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” and “What does it mean to be human at this time?” (06:34)
• Sean started with studying animal consciousness, then added philosophy, psychology, and biology for an interdisciplinary understanding, focusing on ways of relating to the natural world—environmental philosophy (07:10)
• Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory brought Sean into deeper contact with nature, culture, and consciousness, and opened his heart (10:45)
• Nick & Sean coined the term “metacrisis” to illuminate more than simply the sum of all the crises, but also how they overlap and intertwine: the holistic complexity (13:01)
• Wicked problems: if we solve any of the crises, the solution grows more problems (14:45)
• All the crises share a network of root causes, deeper causal structures that underlie the symptoms we are experiencing—crises of interiority & spirituality, sensemaking & meaning making, are drivers of the rest (15:17)
• Our global problems are actually global symptoms (16:55)
• Nick & Sean created a big picture symposium series where scholars/practitioners familiar with Roy Bashkar’s critical realism and Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory (and familiar with the work of Edgar Morin, who uses the...

Ep. 153 (Part 1 of 2) | In this 4th dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, spiritual teacher Hameed Ali explains that much of the beginning of the spiritual path is spent clarifying our individual consciousness from the conditioning of the past in order to wake up and discover our true nature. In the Diamond Approach, this is accomplished using the practice of inquiry, and as we inquire deeply within, qualities intrinsic to consciousness emerge in our awareness. These qualities—like truth, courage, steadfastness, curiosity, and love—each have their own particular sensory expression: a certain color, texture, warmth or coolness, varying degrees of sweetness. The more these qualities emerge, Hameed says, the more powerful our practice and the more authentic our life. He calls these qualities treasures of the soul. 

This beautiful conversation ranges from profoundly moving, as Hameed evokes specific qualities of presence, to humorous, when he tells a funny story about Maharishi Yogi, to intensely illuminating as Hameed talks about the teaching of the first turning, the miracle of ordinary life, what it means to be spiritually mature, the nature of true sorrow, the fact that we are the universe being conscious, and how fundamental nature lies deeper than consciousness, deeper than awareness. It is a multifaceted gem, not to be missed. Recorded September 19, 2024.

“Courage, steadfastness, curiosity, and love are all expressions of our pure consciousness appearing as specific qualities.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing the 4th dialogue in the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, focusing on the soul as “organism of consciousness” (00:59)
• The distinction between universal consciousness and individual consciousness (03:04)
• Much of the beginning of the path is spent clarifying individual consciousness from the conditioning of the past (05:50)
• The practice of inquiry is for the individual consciousness to wake up and discover what it is fundamentally (07:25)
• Courage, steadfastness, curiosity, and love are all expressions of pure consciousness appearing as specific qualities (11:04)
• Why we need these essential qualities: the more these qualities emerge, the more powerful the practice (13:21)
• How can you live your life authentically, without the qualities of integrity, courage, intelligence, clarity, inner peacefulness, and true sorrow? (16:02)
• True sorrow is a quality of presence—sorrow for the suffering, for what’s happening in the world (16:57)
• These qualities are the closest thing to the Platonic forms, necessary for the spiritual path and necessary for living (19:47)
• The incomparable or precious pearl at our center and the difference between personal essence and the individual soul (20:58)
• Psychological individuation is a forerunner for true individuation (23:33)
• Free of conditioning, we wake up to what we really are (24:59)
• The essential qualities are implicit in pure consciousness but they become differentiated in the soul (27:24)
• The teaching of the first turning is that the ordinary world is one way reality manifests—it’s not the product of our ignorance; it has its own spirituality (28:37)
• Ordinary life is miraculous! (34:36)
• As Parmenides...

Ep. 66 | Ukrainian psychologist Kateryna Yasko and integral leadership development expert Vytautas Bučiūnas share their first-hand experiences of the war in Kyiv now, one year after the invasion by Russia, as well as their penetrating perspectives on Russian imperialism (“Russia needs to lose this war so they can reinvent themselves”), on why there is comparably less PTSD among Ukrainian soldiers, and the implications for the world if Russia were to win or if it were to disintegrate. They acknowledge the relatively recent “awakening of Europe” to the fact that Putin won’t stop with Ukraine if he wins, and warn that “democracy needs to be fully ready for a possibly long-term battle for its values.”

Kateryna and Vytautas have witnessed how having an overriding mission and purpose has changed Ukrainians, and describe perceiving an unmistakable shift in energy upon crossing the border into Ukraine, where the heightened appreciation for life and the strength and solidarity of common purpose are palpable. What does the struggle for democracy, freedom, and dignity actually feel like? Find out on a planned pilgrimage to Ukraine this fall—both a spiritual journey of awakening and an opportunity to embody the experience of being invaded by Russia. This podcast is also a call for help—if you feel inspired to support the efforts in Ukraine, below are links to three trustworthy organizations working hard on Ukraine’s behalf. Recorded February 13, 2023.

“Democracies need to have guts. Who knows how many battles between democracy and autocracy lie ahead?”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps

• Introducing Ukrainian psychologist Dr. Kateryna Yasko and leadership development expert Vytautus Bučiūnas (01:51) 
• Thank you to people who gave via iAwake in support of Ukraine (04:23)
• Update on what’s happening on the front lines thanks to the support of Western countries and especially the U.S. (06:01)
• President Zelensky, his speech to the United States Congress, and the qualities that make him a great wartime president (06:58)
• The metamodern cultural code and using force to protect ethical values (10:06)
• The awakening of Europe: democracy needs to be ready for a possibly long-term battle for its values (11:42)
• Ukraine has integrated the extremely important polarities: love and power, and the Battle of Antonov Airport (13:01)
• This is an existential war; there is no choice for Ukrainians (17:40)
• Things are getting a lot worse in Russia socially, economically, and among the elite (20:01)
• Russian imperialism needs to die for the benefit of all, including Russians (21:09)
• Because the defensive war in Ukraine is a just war, levels of PTSD among soldiers are much less (25:04)
• There are more than 100 small nations under Russian control who seek autonomy, independence, dignity, and respect (25:55)
• What will happen if/when Russia disintegrates? (26:34)
• Every country has its Nazis (30:25)
• The spirit in Kyiv now: solidarity, purpose, meaning & an extraordinary appreciation of life (32:30)
• You are invited on a pilgrimage to Ukraine in Oct 2023 to experience the vital spirit of the struggle for democracy firsthand (37:33)
• Co-host John Dupuy’s riveting...

Ep. 99 (Part 2 of 2) | In this riveting, disturbing, and hopeful conversation, addiction expert and recovery coach Dr. Bob Weathers explains the enormous difference it makes when we apply the Integral Model to addiction and recovery. It helps us cover all the bases in our understanding of addiction, from the neuroscientific to the spiritual, and offers a map for recovery in the form of integrated practices that target our physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, and system-coping needs. Bob’s mission in life is to educate—his clients, treatment professionals, policy makers—everyone who is affected by addiction one way or another (which is pretty much everyone) about this set of perspectives that is comprehensive enough to address something as complex as addiction. Bob is deeply familiar with addiction and the suffering it causes on a firsthand basis, and he shares his own experience with an open heart. He is also well informed about the big picture of addiction and shares the latest statistics: 46.3 million Americans are currently clinically addicted—only 6% received treatment last year.

What about the future of addiction? Technology is becoming increasingly capable of creating powerful “super stimuli,” making it ever more difficult for people to exercise self-restraint, and internet addiction and internet porn are through the roof. What can we do to influence the powers that be on a social/systemic level to guide us on a new path? One that recognizes that happiness correlates with connection, contribution, and flow rather than the never-ending quest for more acquisitions? Listening to this honest, heartfelt, and impassioned conversation, you will not be in the least surprised to find out Bob is the 2022 winner of the Most Dedicated Substance Abuse Education & Recovery Coach award. “Living a life of value, meaning, and purpose? If you want to talk about happiness, let’s talk about that.” Recorded May 15, 2023.

“We have got to begin to find creative ways to endorse restraint at all levels of our society.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Making the turn towards recovery from addiction is like an “incredible lightness of liberation” (01:23)
• Transformative lifestyle changes (TLCs) and daily practice invite the grace to change (04:28)
• The crucial element of giving something up: surrendering self (06:50)
• Cultivating a daily practice of acceptance: How surrendered am I in this moment? (09:01)
• Addiction is a progressive disease—and it’s devolutionary (11:33)
• The changing face of addiction: internet addiction, internet porn, super stimuli, evolutionary traps, globesity (15:36)
• Is the plague of addiction going to get even worse? What happens when virtual reality goes online? (18:05)
• The importance of a soul-centric approach: finding your higher power and higher purpose (20:08)
• Richard Rawson’s research on the effect of drugs on the dopaminergic system in the body and the brain (23:44)
• 46.3 million Americans are currently clinically addicted—only 6% received treatment last year (25:36)
• To be human is to be enslaved: acknowledge there is no way we can compete with the stimuli we’re evolving, and the importance of restraint (26:06)
• What can we do as educators? Educate towards shifting public policy to something better than incarceration;...

Ep. 60 (Part 3 of 3) | Michael Murphy, author, co-founder of the world-famous Esalen Institute, and pioneer of the Human Potential Movement starting in the 60s, relates a wealth of intimate experience, knowledge, and wisdom covering his decades of living at the leading edge of transformative practice and the realization of human potential. Mike talks about Esalen’s latest research, our current crisis of belief, and the anchoring question that has guided Esalen (and Mike) all along: how best to serve? Mike has watched the developmental process of transformative practices themselves, such as somatics and psychedelics, now circling around after a period of purgation, and talks about current efforts to add research on the mystical and the ecstatic to meditation and mindfulness research in order to better understand what's going on. 

This podcast is a wonderful mix of tales from the past—including Mike and his wife Dulce’s achievements and adventures with Soviet-American citizen diplomacy towards the end of the Cold War—the present, and what’s coming up at the Esalen research center now, e.g., asking what is happening on "the other side," and discovering the truth about subtle body phenomena. On a personal note, Mike shares about practicing agnosticism, his respect and admiration for the quality of wonder, and about the magic of reading subtle cues and being increasingly in tune with “the algorithms of his heart.” Friendly, relaxed, and humorous, Mike is one of the world’s leading lights on self-transformation. Recorded on February 16, 2022.

“With Esalen, life has given me this marvelous laboratory.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 3

• The magic of reading subtle cues and developing increasing discernment to the subtleties of one’s own internal psychic mechanism (02:26)
• Paul Ekman’s nonverbal cue study and how aging correlates with greater capacity to discern subtle social cues (06:03)
• The capacity for childlike wonder is one of the things Mike admires most (08:15)
• The human potential movement and the complexity of human beings (16:09)
• Spies, innocence, and transparency (19:08)
• Mike’s suspicions about developmental maps and schemes, especially in the spiritual world (23:37)
• There is no such thing as a single virtue: for example, you can’t have courage without prudence (28:38)
• Integral Transformative Practice: does it really work? Does it help us grow in virtue and character? (30:18)
• Mike’s calling to continue the inquiry: What’s going on on the other side? What is the truth about the subtle body phenomena? (32:33)
• Mike’s general advice: enough good habits, meditation, and tailoring your practice to who you are (33:59)
• The problem of suffering in this world is only going to be answered with an adventurous, experimentative embrace exploring what’s going on here (40:00)

Resources & References – Part 3

• Fritz Perls, well renowned German psychotherapist and psychiatrist known for his notable works on Gestalt therapy
• Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences*

Ep. 30 (Part 2 of 2) | Rebel Wisdom co-founder Alexander Beiner has his finger on the cultural pulse of our times. Here he explores key challenges we face as a global community: sensemaking and truth finding in a culture that has lost its coherence as well as its sense of the divine, and what role psychedelics might play both therapeutically and spiritually in healing our culture. He discusses the need to go beyond the intellectual to find clarity and coherence, using embodied practices like meditation and inquiry, and explains how modalities such as these are an essential container for therapeutic psychedelic experiences. What if deep, spiritual, psychotherapeutic group processes were to inform political decision making? Are commodification and economics going to subvert the benefits of the psychedelic renaissance? Let’s start asking, what do we want these substances to bring to the culture, and who has the authority to decide what psychedelics are used for? Ali brings keen insight and the wisdom of a dedicated contemplative to asking the important questions and offering up some answers as well. Recorded September 27, 2021.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2

• The developmental process involved with engaging with the contemplative world (01:30)
• The psychedelic renaissance and learning how best to use psychedelic substances as part of our spiritual practices (02:24)
• Legalizing MDMA (03:46)
• Bringing psychedelics into mainstream culture: the biomedical route (04:23) 
• The need to consciously build a psychedelic metaculture and Ali’s Psychedelic Value Survey (05:52)
• Are economics going to subvert the benefits of the psychedelic reemergence? (07:59) 
• We need to start asking, what do we want these substances to bring to the culture and who has the authority to decide what psychedelics are for? (10:59) 
• Are churches embracing the use of psychedelics? (13:15)
• Religious, spiritual, and therapeutic uses (14:50) 
• Karma yoga: the interface between the contemplative and the cultural, the spiritual and the political (16:25)
• The current meaning crisis, the lack of cultural coherence, and the need to commit to something higher (19:12)
• What’s missing culturally right now is a sense of divinity and the ability to surrender (20:34)
• The global coordination issue (24:14)
• The crucial motive of self-transcendence (Abraham Maslow), meta motives and meta pathologies (25:02)
• The crisis of sense making and understanding that making sense doesn’t happen only through thought, it’s an embodied process (29:09)
• Fostering complexity tolerance and resilience in not knowing (32:02)
• What gives Alexander hope? The idea that humanity is at its best under pressure (34:11)

Resources & References - Part 2

• Ram Dass, Be Here Now
• Rick Doblin, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies

Ep. 96 (Part 1 of 2) | In this moving, illuminating, and impassioned discussion, retired Police Lt. Chris Orrey and San Bruno Police Chief Ryan Johansen open our eyes as to the realities of policing in today’s world and offer solutions as to how the entire institution of police work could be transformed to become more effective and sustainable, both for police officers and for the communities they serve. Ryan and Chris explain that applying an Integral approach to police work—which BTW encompasses a lot more than simply law enforcement, to include the roles of social worker, mental health counselor, EMT, and more, in crisis situations—is exactly what is needed to turn around an institution that is controversial and flailing at this point. They point out that it is essential to prioritize officer wellness—not just physical wellness but interior wellness as well—and give officers the coping mechanisms and support they need to integrate the inevitable trauma of the job and role model resilience for the victims and survivors they interact with. An Integral understanding also paves the way for police leadership to become servant-based; where leadership puts the welfare of the officers first and foremost, and in turn, officers are in peak condition, mentally, physically, emotionally, to serve and protect their communities with compassion and skill.

Nationwide, it is a time of catastrophic crisis in police recruitment and retention. Most departments are severely understaffed and morale is at a dangerous low. Chief Ryan’s San Bruno police department, however, is fully staffed and the officers have high morale. By applying the principles of the Integral Model and practicing a heartfelt, servant-based leadership style, Ryan has turned this national trend around. Whether policing impacts you directly or not, there is much to be gained by listening to this stirring conversation, which reveals so much about the realities of our society and the incredible courage, compassion, and outright nobility it takes to be a police officer—putting your life on the line to protect and serve others every single day. Recorded July 6, 2023.

“The only way to meet the community demands of modern day policing Is to deploy officers who are healthy, happy, and well adjusted human beings, with a deep commitment to a well articulated purpose.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing San Bruno Police Chief Ryan Johansen and retired police Lt. Chris Orrey (01:00)
• What does it mean to be integrally informed? (04:46)
• Law enforcement is possibly the smallest component of what police do: the larger picture includes the roles of social worker, mental health counselor, big sister/big brother, emergency medical personnel, and more (05:49)
• Good cops embrace the role of societal “backstop” and excel at working with other agencies who carry on after the initial emergency (09:59)
• Is the training for cops enough? It’s gone from 3 months to 6 months (in CA), but it could really benefit from an Integral perspective (13:53)
• Training is often used as a scapegoat: every time there is a problem in policing people say this is a training issue, but whose fault is it really? (17:20)
• Integral leadership is essential in modern day policing (19:59)
• The four quadrants explained and how they apply to police reform (22:32)
• Healthy...

Ep. 124 | In this engaging, informative, and thought provoking conversation, artificial intelligence expert Dr. Nikki Mirghafori gives us a clear picture of where AI technology stands at this point and enlightens us as to its gifts, its potential, and its dangers. Nikki, who is also an internationally acclaimed Buddhist meditation teacher, is passionate about helping to bring equanimity to the whole issue of AI and emphasizes that the fear mongering going on around it is doing all of us a real disservice. She opens our eyes to the enormous potential of AI as applied to global issues such as cleaning up the environment, ending hunger, providing clean water, improving methods of food production—even acting as a wise mentor in supporting people to be their best selves. Nikki tells us that ethical use of AI depends on both designers and users, and that we are not powerless in the way things unfold. 

How can AI systems be benevolent and supportive and bring out the best in us? Will we be able to maintain our values and ethics as our use of AI continues to expand? If our perception of AI was sort of murky or limited before, this conversation effectively brings us to a much more informed understanding. Nikki explains everything from where we have been exposed to AI without knowing it, the important distinction between weak/narrow AI and strong/general AI (AGI), personal choice engineering, our natural tendency to anthropomorphize AI, and the difference between benevolent AI and compassionate AI. Nikki is a superb teacher and a pleasure to listen to; this conversation is invaluable in its timeliness and its ability to bring us all up to speed on AI. Recorded January 29, 2024.

“There’s so much good that can come from this technology… the list is endless how much AI technology can be helpful.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps

• Introducing AI research scientist and inventor & gifted meditation teacher and practitioner, Dr. Nikki Mirghafori (01:13)
• What exactly is AI? (03:07)
• The important distinction between weak or narrow AI and strong or general AI (AGI) (05:11)
• AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) which is self-aware and conscious is still only theoretical: fear mongering around AGI is really a disservice to us (06:46)
• Where have people been exposed to AI without even knowing it? (10:28) 
• The gifts that AI technology can bring are endless (13:33)
• The most exciting AI applications for Nikki: finding creative ways to clean up the environment, stop hunger, provide clean water, produce our food, and be a mentor in supporting people to be their best selves (15:07)
• Pattern recognition: taking input patterns and producing output patterns is the heart/brain of AI (17:35)
• How can AI help us to become wiser and more compassionate? The ethics of AI depend on both designer and user (20:14)
• Creating AI in our image and how our developmental level fits in—it’s in the data that the AI system is fed (28:16)
• Personal choice engineering (32:11) 
• Kids have become ruder interacting with chatbots like Siri & Alexa: how can we keep our humanity alive and be true to our ethics as we interact with AI? (34:40)
• Resisting temptation and avoiding sliding down the slippery ethical slope (36:50)
• What is the mystery of being human?...

Ep. 78 (Part 2 of 2) | Greg Thomas, brilliant cultural analyst, educator, musician, speaker, and co-founder of the Jazz Leadership Project, is passionate about the power of culture to transform us as individuals and collectively. Where race is concerned, Greg presents an illuminating, multiperspectival view of the many layered issues around racism in this country. Early on, Greg developed a systemic perspective on how everything fits together, and realized that the issues that plague us are not just about race or racism, but the overarching systemic racial worldview. Greg offers that the way out of this morass lies in adopting a cultural lens to replace the racial lens. And Greg points out that when we further embrace a cultural worldview in a participatory way, it opens up all the doors and windows: creating room for individuals to shine, for groups to experience group flow, for all of us to enjoy beauty and appreciation—the way soloist, band, and audience come together in a shared musical experience. 

When Greg talks about the power of culture, sharing illustrative anecdotes about blues masters, blues philosophy, and great moments in jazz history, it becomes clear just how effective culture is at dissolving boundaries and heightening connection, and how music (in this case) allows us to transcend our differences, our daily burdens, and experience unbounded joy. This is a lively, impactful, and poignant dialogue, with wisdom ranging from the deeply spiritual, the psychological/developmental, to the political and universal. Recorded January 25, 2023.

“Out of the many…one: this is the challenge, the spiritual challenge, for Americans and for humanity.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Antagonistic cooperation: competition is part of the American, democratic experience, but there are ways it can be a cooperative competition, e.g. cutting contests in jazz, cypher in hip hop (01:30)
• Where individuality and the group flow dynamic come together: jazz and the ring shout tradition (04:34)
• Entropy, consciousness, and culture: the tragic dimension and the comic perspective (05:33)
• The power of culture: pushing people towards excellence, orienting towards self-actualization, and the Greek notion of arete (06:57)
• How do we get to arete? The importance of striving for and developing both mastery and wisdom (11:11)
• The tension between virtues like liberty and equality (15:27)
• The healing power of music: Art Pepper & Sonny Stitt’s cutting contest (18:00)
• Stomping the blues and how music merges secular & sacred, reminds us of our range of human feelings, gives resonance to memory, and brings healing and transcendence (21:11)
• Music affirms the gift of life: moments of utopia allow us to transcend our everyday cares (25:00)
• The role of creativity, the arts & humanities, is crucial in getting through the meaning crisis and the metacrisis (28:53)
• Cultural forms and ideas can be picked up at any time and reinvigorated: bringing back the wisdom (29:52)
• If there are enough of us who can model what it takes to be in flow together, despite our differences, we could tap into higher dimensions of human possibility (32:52)
• The blues idiom wisdom tradition, great orators Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & Frederick

Ep. 145 (Part 1 of 3) | Award-winning author, Zen priest and teacher, Kung Fu master, and professional advisor and trainer, Keith Martin-Smith, took a good look at the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement when he began to notice the damage it was causing people he knew under the guise of progress, or equity. Putting his keen mind to the task, Keith identified seven key areas where the DEI movement goes markedly astray from the values it aspires to. Coming from an integral understanding, Keith does more than simply point out where the movement has backfired. We learn that postmodern thinking is how we became aware of the “subtle soup of racism [and bias] in the cultural field itself”—beyond the concrete, obvious social injustices that activists fought in the 20th century. This more subtle field of bias is responsible for the inequalities we see in society today, which is what the DEI movement would like to tear down. But the ways in which DEI acts to make this happen, ironically, are characterized by exactly the things that DEI is against: intolerance, inequity, undiversity, tribalism, and anti-liberalism.

In his wise, articulate, and gracious way, Keith makes sense of why the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement has become a political flashpoint, raising the hackles of not only rightwing conservatives but also liberal progressives. Sympathetic to the values of DEI, Keith is all about helping to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive movement. When asked how the values of DEI could be fulfilled to make it the harmonious, effective, correcting movement it aspires to be, Keith responded, “with conversations like this, for one thing,” adding, “we need to realize that everyone has a portion of truth—we just need to connect everyone’s portion of truth with their heart.” Recorded June 6, 2024.

“Everybody cares…they just care about different things. Consensus and change come from being willing to listen to what people care about and finding space to honor that.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing award-winning author, professional advisor & trainer, martial arts master, Zen priest & teacher Keith Martin-Smith (01:12) 
• How Keith came to articulate what has gone wrong with the diversity, equity & inclusion movement (01:49)
• The divisiveness of DEI and the need to bring in an integral understanding (06:22)
• The difference between concrete, overt injustices and systemic injustice (08:27)
• The subtle soup of racism in the cultural field that we have become aware of in the postmodern period (11:19)
• All the punches at DEI are being thrown from an early rational or prerational worldview (15:26)
• What are the seven deadly sins of DEI? (18:15)
• DEI’s simplistic view of privilege, considering race, sex & gender, but not class, education & family of origin (19:00)
• What are healthy responses to having been given privilege (as opposed to shame and guilt)? (23:37)
• DEI proponents lecturing us about privilege don’t talk about their own privilege (26:50)
• The effect of neglecting class in DEI’s reductionist view of privilege (29:56)
• The problematic (undiverse) way the DEI movement treats diversity (34:31)
• Concrete racism versus subtle racism/microaggressions (37:49)
• Because...

Ep. 48 (Part 3 of 3) | “Don’t miss it!” says James Baraz, author of Awakening Joy and creator of the very intriguing 5-month Awakening Joy course. “Don't miss it'' refers to the present moment—the gladness, the beauty, the uniqueness. James explains that in order to awaken our joy, we need to savor the wholesome moments and not turn away distracted, slipping back into our habitual mental ruts. James’ teachings take us deeply into states like gratitude and compassionate presence, to where we can focus our attention on how it feels to feel good somatically, thereby creating new neural pathways that strengthen awareness and aliveness. James has witnessed a lot of people learn to love themselves and turn their lives around as a result of this teaching. Why are we the last ones to see the goodness inside ourselves? he wonders. How can we so radically underestimate ourselves? 

Rest in the landscape of gratitude when James guides a short meditation in part 2, and be inspired that transformational change is indeed possible for all of us—to where we can know the joy of loving ourselves, of connecting with others, the joy of letting go, of service, and the joy of simply being—as we undertake the fundamental experiment of discovering who we really are. Recorded September 14, 2022.

“A simple shift of perspective is transformative.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 3

• Joy and awakening take a lot of courage; fear is really saying, “About to grow!” – Jack Kornfield (00:51)
• Reaching out for support is a reflection of health, not weakness (05:25)
• We are all transmitters of the energy of life: the ripple effects of joy (08:34)
• Why doesn’t everyone see the power in seeing the good? (14:00)
• What are the most life-changing discoveries that people make in the Awakening Joy course? (15:57)
• What are James’ practices today? Showing up for the world: joy and activism, opening to the pain in the world (19:32)
• Looking through 3 lenses: gratitude, compassion, and equanimity—to avoid denial, overwhelm, and disengagement (21:02)
• How can we be agents of healing, agents of consciousness? (25:47)
• This is the moment we were born for (27:41)
• We have made the face of the world into a reflection of the state of our minds (30:17)
• The wealth of giving to life, serving life (32:41)
• One Earth Sangha, virtual ecodharma center (34:59)

Resources & References - Part 3

• Gerald Jampolsky, Love is Letting Go of Fear*
• Jack Kornfield, meditation teacher, author, founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, A Path with Heart*
• The Buddha, “Good friends…are the whole of the...

Ep. 53 (Part 2 of 2) | Saniel Bonder and Linda Groves-Bonder live and guide others along the path of embodied awakening, using the tools of transmission, mutuality, self-inquiry, evocation, and more. They have named their process of spiritual embodiment “waking down,” to distinguish working the nuts and bolts of an individual’s unique path of spiritual development from the more general transcendent state described by the term “waking up.” Saniel and Linda not only mentor people on the road to awakening, but also through the challenges and never-ending process of purification that characterize post-awakening stages.

How do we speak to our present state of divinity? What really leads to the stabilization of awakening? In this heartfelt, open conversation, Linda and Saniel share practical wisdom about nonduality, self-sense, and radical transcendence; the importance of fostering communion and appreciation; using “HEART” to point to ultimate reality; and also describe their own unique and beautiful ways of sanctifying and ritualizing everyday life. Saniel and Linda's system of opening people up to an awakened life, is very much an individuated one; their 10-year vision is one million hearts illumined. Recorded October 27, 2022.

“Practicing one’s identification as the Great Mystery.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• The importance of self-acceptance while also understanding change is possible (00:56)
• The post-awakening process and Daniel Brown’s map of maps (06:39)
• The stages of awakening: the unawakened persona, awakened personhood, and personification of the awakening cosmos (12:39)
• Post-awakening opens us up to new challenges: wake down, shake down (16:18)
• The inquiry process in post-awakening stages (20:44)
• Bringing people to confidence in awakened stages (23:57)
• Contributing not only by what you do but by your very being (25:53)
• Becoming a HEART activator and managing the other side of the transmission process (28:49)
• Evocation: how to speak to your present state of divinity (30:15)
• The need to foster individuation, communion, and appreciation and living in gratitude (31:20)
• Sanctifying and ritualizing everyday life (34:40)
• The feminine aspect Linda brings to the teaching: empathetic, motherly, a whole-being welcoming (37:28)
• What are Linda and Saniel’s daily practices? (40:02)
• Saniel & Linda’s 10-year vision: 1 million hearts illumined (51:00)

Resources & References – Part 2

• Six Step Recognition Yoga (YouTube video)
• Samjama, one-pointed absorption in the object of meditation
• Dr. Daniel Brown, meditation teacher who mapped the process of awakening and beyond: a map of maps
• Saniel Bonder, Great...

Ep. 168 (Part 1 of 2) | Integral psychologist Keith Witt can’t get enough of the magic and beauty that happens in relationships as people begin to develop what he calls “a post-issue consciousness.” He explains that when our executive self, our wise self or witness, kicks in and forges a caring connection with the places where we hold our hurt and our traumas, then integration and healing start to happen, eventually with almost no conscious energy expenditure. “My job is to help people develop the witness,” Keith says, so they can observe their defensive or destructive states and reach for compassionate understanding, for themselves, for their partner, and for others.

Keith tells us the three foundations of the modern marriage are friendship, a love affair, and an ability to resolve issues that come up, and says the shift to a post-issue relationship happens when all three facets become intentional. “Post-issue couples don’t let things get in the way of their love,” he says. Throughout the conversation, Keith shares a goldmine of therapeutic wisdom on the subject of relationships, including the client/therapist relationship, and in true Integral fashion, he includes perspectives from all sorts of interesting angles, such as our evolutionary development, neural development, and moral and spiritual development. This discussion is warm, friendly, cheerful, lively, and chock full of useful information and insights. Keith’s excitement about the evolutionary directionality of human relationships is contagious and inspiring. Recorded August 16, 2024.

“Evolution in humans is characterized by deeper consciousness and more compassion . . . evolution has a directionality—and it’s toward unity.”

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Integral psychologist and prolific author Dr. Keith Witt (01:00)
• What is a post-issue relationship? (03:11)
• What happens when couples develop emotional intelligence and are able to love each other more? (05:48)
• Example of an argument in a post-issue relationship (07:35)
• How complexity and therapeutic parts work figures into it (08:47)
• How do people grow internally? How do we integrate? (10:01)
• A healing cosmology came to Keith after he learned about Integral Theory and all the systems came together (11:59)
• It helps if couples have a sense of evolutionary development (14:24)
• Egalitarian relationships that came online in the last 50-70 years brought along new potentials for love and problem solving (18:33) 
• What happens when we go into defensive states? (19:21)
• Evolution has a directionality toward deeper consciousness, compassion, unity (22:56)
• Liberating ourselves by not cooperating with the argument (24:20)
• How does the long time it takes to raise a human child affect our social learning? (25:38)
• Humans are ultra social: 90% chimpanzee/10% bee (28:01)
• Resilience and trauma programming are actually memory systems (30:57)
• How do people move towards a post-issue relationship? (32:44)
• The key is making it an intentional relationship (35:38)
• Self awareness: we’re often crippled based on a history of trauma (38:42)
• Leading couples therapist John Gottman teaches what works for happy couples to unhappy couples (39:58)
• Physiological arousal—once people are escalated to a certain point, they can’t think (41:58)
• What...

Ep. 160 (Part 1 of 2) | In this profoundly moving and inspiring conversation, GRIP Training Institute CEO, Kim Moore, and facilitator/trainer Fateen Jackson, Sr., also a GRIP graduate, educate us as to the power and magic of the GRIP prison movement, based on Jacques Verduin’s model: Leaving Prison Before You Get Out. This yearlong trauma healing and accountability program is unique in the degree of radical transformation it aims for—and delivers. It is about freeing minds, and as Kim points out, goes beyond the duality of teacher/student, inmate/not inmate, victim/offender to where everyone joins in a mutual journey of healing, transformation, and liberation.The program is so transformative that ripple effects from GRIP students can be felt throughout the prison, and GRIP graduates often struggle with how little emotional intelligence and trauma healing work the rest of us have done when they get out.

Kim and Fateen shine a bright light on the inestimable value of a caring, compassionate community, pointing out that deep personal transformation and taking responsibility doesn’t happen in isolation. They share illuminating stories of their own experiences, and the dedication and gladness they exude in this talk is itself impactful and inspiring. There is something in this conversation, maybe because it touches our deepest brokenness and then lifts it up and redeems it, that reaches right into one’s heart and infuses it with inspiration, hope, compassion, and love. Recorded November 21, 2024.

“The wisdom that is born in these groups goes way beyond prison.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing GRIP CEO Kim Moore, facilitator/trainer Fateen Jackson, and the remarkable program Guiding Rage into Power (01:15)
• How did Kim come to have a life purpose of facilitating transformation? (04:06)
• Moving out of privilege into direct relationship with the realities of criminal justice (06:25)
• Fateen’s story and how GRIP allowed him to source the trauma that led to prison and transform it (09:19)
• The morning Fateen was released and the ripple effects of GRIP (16:03)
• 4 foundations of GRIP: cultivating mindfulness, developing emotional intelligence, doing no harm, understanding victim & survivor impact (19:39)
• The importance of building a safe container and building trust (20:52)
• GRIP assignments: the unfinished business letter, apology to the victims letter, and more (22:18)
• The emotional/energetic arc the group goes through, ending with a deep sense of empathy for the survivors or victims (25:33)
• What is the power and the magic of GRIP? 1) instruction, 2) practice/tools, 3) processing (28:36)
• The incredible power of a healing community (30:07)
• Leaving prison mentally, emotionally, spiritually can happen even while still in prison, without hope of release (30:55) 
• The healing itself is the reward—that’s where the freedom comes from (32:12) 
• How GRIP students affect the rest of the prison: flipping the culture of the yard (33:20)
• Becoming peacemakers: taking responsibility for your own healing doesn’t happen in isolation—it happens in community (34:39)
• What happens when you get out of prison?

Ep. 72 (Part 3 of 3) | Nicholas Hedlund & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens are big picture philosophers with extraordinary big hearts as well as big minds, dedicated to understanding how consciousness, culture, and nature relate to each other, and to forging a path for the Earth and civilization to flourish rather than fall apart. In this dialogue, the world of metatheories comes alive with urgent, purposeful meaning, because as Sean and Nick point out, integrative metatheories like Ken Wilber’s integral theory and Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism are the only tools that provide a useful framework for us to talk about and confront the vast web of interrelated and wicked problems we face on every level at this time. Now, we are only just beginning to understand the nature of the metacrisis—how the external crises are driven by interior crises of sensemaking and meaning making—but how do we bring everyone to the table to find solutions? How do we get the wisdom of these approaches to bear upon the crises we face? 

It turns out that heart connection—love, caring, and being willing to listen and to change—is a crucial, key ingredient for us to move forward in a positive way. Nick and Sean express both heartbreak and wild enthusiasm—heartbreak that our entire planetary community is so threatened and we have only a small window of time (till 2030) to transform our consciousness and culture into taking a cooperative and reverent approach to life, and enthusiasm to be alive at this pivotal time where everything hangs in the balance. Recorded December 7, 2022.

“We really need both—we need big Heart to connect and be friends with each other and love each other and we need that in equal measure to big Mind.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 3

• What metatheory is and what it is not: integrative metatheories explore how consciousness, culture, and nature relate to each other (01:35)
• Big picture models are antidotes to the single focus fallacies, single issue fallacies, single cause fallacies, and single solution fallacies (04:07)
• Developmentally, the majority of people are at a stage of “advanced linear thinking” and the metacrisis requires “advanced systems thinking” (05:21)
• People need 3 things to grow under stress instead of regress: context, pointing a way out, and being told what we can do individually (06:46)
• How do we communicate the urgency without invoking the psychology of fear? (09:08)
• The crucial window to transform the very foundations of our civilization is between now and 2030 (10:18)
• What can we do? We’re still working on the context but we need to have a collective conversation to figure out what is the path out, or the possible paths out (11:20)
• A core developmental practice we can actually do is perspective taking, perspective seeking, and perspective coordinating (14:28)
• Ego death is all along the path; we need to keep opening up to a bigger version of ourselves (16:15)
• Taking perspectives is not enough (18:37)
• Business as usual is not going to happen—how do we create new educational systems to transform the world in the ways that are needed? (21:10)
• The importance of sounding our note, sitting in prayer in humility, and asking, what can I do? (25:10)
• Pessimism and optimism are both ego strategies to deal with uncertainty; we need to learn to...

Ep. 55 (Part 2 of 3) | A frank, hard-hitting conversation with TV producer David Riordan about the dangers democracy faces in this country, the fact that we are in a state of transition whether we like it or not, and the power of shifting our narratives to create change and a sustainable future. David has long been fascinated by the power of story, and has set up Vital Signs of Democracy, a platform that tracks and analyzes the narratives told and reported in the U.S. today—narratives that are foundational to our culture, our culture wars, our politics, and our future. 

Is there hope for American democracy? The good news is that studies show 65-70% of the population actually agree on and support the core principles of democracy—so if we could shift our narrative to reflect the majority view, we might be okay. The other news is that neither democrats or republicans, MAGA conservatives or progressives, have stepped up to represent this majority. David explains that we urgently need an alternative narrative from what we have to move forward—and we all need to ask what kind of country we want America to be. Recorded November 16, 2022 (on the heels of the 2022 midterm elections).

“If you don’t like the story that’s driving you, you can change it.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Is our democracy under threat? We seem to be in love with the story that we are heading into dystopia (00:50)
• Since the Civil War, we’ve believed in our democratic political system (02:45)
• It used to ebb and flow, back and forth; liberals would be elected, then conservatives, in both Congress and the Supreme Court (05:14)
• What is happening, different from political turbulence in the past, that is putting our democracy under threat now? (07:05)
• Are the guardrails of the political system still working? Did the 2022 midterms bring us back on course? (9:30)
• Beginning to work in a healthy perspective is going to depend on what both parties learn from this last election (10:59)
• The Overton window, a range of ideas and values that are acceptable to discuss (14:17)
• What are the two parties going to learn from this midterm election? (15:29)
• The quality of the candidates matters: what the voters have said is we want more reasonable candidates (16:36)
• What part of America is Make America Great Again referring to? (18:53)
• Trump, the white, nationalist, Christian-driven narrative, and the fact that we are now a multicultural society (21:32)
• David’s adventure through red states with progressive Evangelicals, “We cannot imagine living in your progressive narrative as much as you can’t imagine living in our America.” (23:42)
• What is it we’re doing as progressives that so frightens people? Could we change the narrative to where people feel included rather than excluded? (27:00)
• The “unify message”: can we find common ground so each side can talk to each other? (28:27)
• What can be done to stop the polarization? (31:43)
• The abortion conversation, Roe vs Wade, and the part it played in the last two elections (32:16)
• We have to decide, as a country, what America we want to be going forward, and establish a template to work with without getting into the

Ep. 138 (Dialogue 1, Part 2 of 2) | In this rich and engaging conversation, the first episode of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali gives us a beautiful overview of the Diamond Approach, which is a brilliant integration of teachings and a path of awakening born out of his own direct experience and informed by his deep understanding of the world’s great spiritual traditions and modern psychology. Here, Hameed details the many facets of the Diamond Approach that make it unique among spiritual paths, which leads down several intriguing avenues of exploration: What is the Diamond Approach’s understanding of the soul? How does spiritual guidance work? What are the four turnings that give context and structure to students on this spiritual path? Hameed delves, too, into the importance of inquiry on our road to discovering our true nature, love’s role in allowing us to trust reality, and the importance of realizing that the ultimate lives within each individual.

Hameed also shares personal aspects of his journey: how he was guided from the precise field of physics to the field of psychology, how he came to the revelation of the human soul, and what he attributes to why he has been so receptive to spiritual openings and realizations throughout his life. The Diamond Approach is not only about discovering the nature of absolute reality—it is also about realizing ultimate consciousness in ordinary life, to experience the beauty and richness of a life lived in simple freedom and enjoyment. As Hameed says, “Know, by engaging the path, it is possible to be free.” Recorded June 13, 2024.

“To get into the spiritual universe and find the richness, the beauty, and the freedom, you need to go deep – you need to go vertical not horizontal.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• What has allowed Hameed to be so unusually receptive to spiritual realizations and teachings? (00:51)
• How Hameed was guided from physics to psychology (03:13)
• How psychology got integrated into the Diamond Approach (07:36)
• Unique to the Diamond Approach is Hameed doesn’t throw away any of what he has experienced, even as things continue to change (08:47)
• The four turnings are a way of organizing the teaching for students, giving context and framework (10:38)
• Applying knowledge of the spiritual deep to physics (11:45)
• Inquiry: the process of dissolving obstacles and discovering reality (15:16)
• The first of the four turnings: experiencing realizations as a free and timeless individual—ordinary spirituality (18:25)
• The second turning is nondual: one is the vastness, the ocean of awareness (20:09)
• The third turning: the realization of nonlocality, the whole universe is in a grain of sand and I am the grain of sand (21:26)
• The fourth turning includes many realizations—one of which is the realization of “nobody here” (22:30)
• The fifth turning begins with indeterminacy (24:01)
• The turnings came to Hameed as a sequence, but there is no limit to potential awakenings (25:18)
• This path is not for everybody and the importance of validating each spiritual path (27:18)
• Inquiry is a skill of consciousness (29:35)
• For true realization you need to...

Ep. 139 (Part 1 of 2) | Author, psychiatrist, professor, and Deep Transformation podcast co-host Roger Walsh was drawn to explore the remarkable world of shamanism—a tradition of opening to altered states, intuition, and profound insights and wisdom—when he found it was the one great world tradition he didn’t understand. He was intrigued by Romanian scholar Mircea Eliade’s description of the core feature of a shaman being “ecstatic flight,” and recognizing the lack of any easy to understand book on the subject, Roger was inspired to pursue this subject in depth and write the book himself! In his book and in this conversation, Roger provides us with a brilliant, big picture perspective, pointing out that at the heart of shamanism (and every great world tradition) are psychospiritual technologies—actual practices—that lead us to the doorway of the Great Mystery, and that service is the culmination of each tradition, both as a means to and an expression of one’s realization.

The dialogue is warm, open, and personal—Roger shares his experience of realizing the vastness of the inner world for the first time (“I felt like I’d lived my entire life on the top six inches of a wave on top of an ocean I didn’t even know existed!”), his realization that “as a culture, we are sleepwalking through life, unaware of the resources, capacities and gifts we bear within us,” and his coming to terms with the Great Mystery. John, too, shares his experiences within the Native American spiritual tradition: the power of the vision quest, prayer, drumming in ceremony, death medicine, and enduring trials in service to one’s people. Roger’s wonderful curiosity, integrity, graciousness, and keen intellect are all in evidence as he discusses the indeterminacy of spirit, mediumship, journeying, and death, and as he marvels at the bottomless, boundless mystery that both surrounds us and is us. Recorded June 27, 2024.

“Shamans were our first general practitioner, spiritual guide, tribal counselor, psychopomp—all rolled into one.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Deep Transformation podcast co-host Roger Walsh, professor, psychiatrist, and author of The World of Shamanism and Essential Spirituality, among others (01:18)
• Roger’s book, The World of Shamanism—on the oldest spiritual tradition we know of, found all around the world (04:09)
• How was Roger drawn to write about shamanism? (06:36)
• Realizing at the heart of the world’s great religious traditions are psychospiritual technologies—actual practices—to induce the same states of consciousness the founders had discovered (09:31)
• Shamanism was the one tradition Roger couldn’t understand—after waiting for a good book on it to come out, Roger decided to write it himself (10:46) 
• John’s experiences with Durwin White Lightning and Wallace Black Elk of the Lakota tribe, and the shamanic effects of connecting with nature (13:35)
• Roger’s investigation of shamanism included intensive training with Michael Harner, gnostic intermediary who introduced shamanism to the western world (18:38)
• Through direct experience and a lot of study, including the integral framework of Ken Wilber, Roger brings a big picture perspective to shamanism (22:54)
• Native American spirituality, death medicine, and the transformative power of the sweat lodge (23:39)
• The power of...

Ep. 82 (Part 2 of 2) | Constitutional law expert and criminal justice professor Mark Fischler has a thirst for justice and a gift for teaching. With cogency and passion, Mark explains that law is not the absolute that we perhaps thought, but an ever changing reflection of the values we hold as a society. Law is a developmental process, and will benefit from our own dedication to inner moral development. Mark shows how the law can (and has) become ever more inclusive, with the potential to serve and uphold the dignity of all peoples, all beings. Because of its abstract clauses, there is room in the Constitution to interpret the law in ways that are attuned with our pluralistic society. Mark calls on us to come together and decide what we value as a people—there is no mandate in democracy that all decision making power must reside in the hands of the Supreme Court, which has only had the sort of unilateral power it enjoys today since the 1950s.

This is no dry, legalistic conversation, but a truly illuminating vision of the potential of the law to embody justice, inclusivity, compassion. It is also a solid overview of where we have come from and where we are now, referencing many landmark rulings of the Supreme Court. Finally, this is spiritually inspiring as well—Mark tells the story of the transformational epiphany he had as a young man that led to his career as a public defender, onto the spiritual path, and eventually to become a well-respected, award-winning professor of criminal justice. Mark’s perspective on the law is far ranging, embracing human rights, animal rights, the rights of all beings. It comes from a place of deep care and compassion: “What is the happiness that the Declaration of Independence talks about, what is suffering?” Be inspired by Mark’s wise and knowledgeable teachings and the potential of the law to create a just society for all. Recorded January 4, 2023.

“Law is our collective coming together and deciding what we value as a people.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• The 4th branch of government: administrative agencies like the EPA that implement policies are now under very specific guidelines from the legislature (01:40)
• Abstract language in the Constitution requires interpretation and the challenge of finding balance between restrictively specific guidelines and abstract directives (06:45)
• The history of the Supreme Court and how the Court is 10–20 years behind the rest of the culture’s center of gravity (09:44)
• The doctrine of originalism: is the Constitution a fixed document? (12:36)
• Ronald Dworkin, primary legal philosopher of his generation: “The law is absolutely an act of interpretation.” (15:55)
• Originalism’s effect on Brown v. Board of Education, the Equal Protection Clause, and Plessis v. Ferguson (16:35)
• Abraham Lincoln was competing with the courts on slavery—his point of view was far more holistic, respecting the equal dignity of all people (20:47)
• We all need to be involved in the determination of fundamental human rights and not leave it up to the Supreme Court (24:24)
• Our Constitution, because of the abstract clauses, allows us ways to start to relate differently to our environment and all beings (26:00)
• The law is a social institution embodying the ways we agree to relate to each other as a society (28:09)
• We need to become...

Ep. 146 (Part 2 of 3) | Award-winning author, Zen priest and teacher, Kung Fu master, and professional advisor and trainer, Keith Martin-Smith, took a good look at the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement when he began to notice the damage it was causing people he knew under the guise of progress, or equity. Putting his keen mind to the task, Keith identified seven key areas where the DEI movement goes markedly astray from the values it aspires to. Coming from an integral understanding, Keith does more than simply point out where the movement has backfired. We learn that postmodern thinking is how we became aware of the “subtle soup of racism [and bias] in the cultural field itself”—beyond the concrete, obvious social injustices that activists fought in the 20th century. This more subtle field of bias is responsible for the inequalities we see in society today, which is what the DEI movement would like to tear down. But the ways in which DEI acts to make this happen, ironically, are characterized by exactly the things that DEI is against: intolerance, inequity, undiversity, tribalism, and anti-liberalism.

In his wise, articulate, and gracious way, Keith makes sense of why the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement has become a political flashpoint, raising the hackles of not only rightwing conservatives but also liberal progressives. Sympathetic to the values of DEI, Keith is all about helping to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive movement. When asked how the values of DEI could be fulfilled to make it the harmonious, effective, correcting movement it aspires to be, Keith responded, “with conversations like this, for one thing,” adding, “we need to realize that everyone has a portion of truth—we just need to connect everyone’s portion of truth with their heart.” Recorded June 6, 2024.

“All of us deserve to be treated with dignity that is innate in all of us.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• DEI’s overemphasis on oppression and power: how it started (00:50)
• Critical race theory’s metaview is that the world operates on principles of power and oppression (01:57)
• The single cause fallacy (02:59) 
• Drawing the wrong conclusions: Kenyans and marathons, women and STEM fields (04:10)
• Male dominance in sports caused by bias rather than biology? (12:03)
• The wage gap between men and women and significant difference it makes to control for factors (18:51)
• Why men outearn women at Uber: subtle differences in the way men and women behave (27:39)
• IQ and how men dominate the extremes of the Bell Curve (29:34)
• Fairness demands that everyone is treated the best way possible (34:18)
• Brief review of the main DEI flaws covered so far: DEI’s simplistic view of privilege; how DEI’s diversity doesn’t look at diverse mindsets; intolerance of other viewpoints; pushing everything through critical race theory; and how equality of outcomes can be oppressive, unfair, sexist & racist (35:31)
• Tribalism: DEI compartmentalizes everyone to a tribalistic identity, with the focus on race and sex (40:05)
• How to explain a white supremacist group run by people who are not white: multiracial whiteness (46:00)
• The primary goal should be to cultivate relationship rather than projecting a whole history on an individual based on...

Ep. 64 (Part 2 of 2) | Lynn Fuentes, Ph.D., author of The Koan of Chronic Illness and teacher of a series of courses on managing chronic illness, shines a bright light of understanding on chronic illness with all of its far-reaching ramifications in this very moving and important conversation. Lynn not only illuminates what chronic illness involves physically, emotionally, and relationally, but delves also into the existential questions it engenders: How should we live? How can we love each other? How can we embrace our suffering and allow it to be our path to greater connection with spirit? Lynn speaks from personal experience, having spent many years caring for a family member with a debilitating illness, and explains how she used the Integral Map in her own struggle to help make sense of the huge, all-consuming project that inevitably follows a diagnosis. Now she teaches others what she has learned about coping with the overwhelming logistics, healing the trauma, and also about transforming illness into a spiritual practice.

This conversation really pertains to all of us, whether we are very ill or not, as aging towards death is something we all face. Can we learn to prepare ourselves? Can we reflect deeply on what is truly meaningful and important about life itself and live accordingly? Can we open to the wholeness of life, the pain and the bliss, the suffering that our cultural narrative would just as soon ignore? Chronic illness is a heartrending subject, but Lynn’s warm, wise, skillful, Integral approach allows us to see it in an expanded way, more profound, more transformative, than we may have seen it before. Recorded December 15, 2022.

“We cannot separate suffering from life, they are intimately interconnected. Illness really shows us that.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• What are the essential things in life? Self-knowledge, the need for community, a spiritual connection, appreciating the small things (01:27)
• Transforming illness into a spiritual practice and the practice of surrender—in surrendering we can become larger; it’s not giving up, not defeat, it’s acceptance (05:20) 
• Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ stages of grief end in acceptance (08:22)
• Respecting people’s journey: people are too ready to make assumptions about what is needed, when we actually need to listen and ask, “What do you need?” (09:00)
• It’s very scary letting it in: this could happen to anyone at any moment (11:32)
• I thought life was about doing something! But now I can’t do. (12:53)
• How to take sick people’s grumpiness and irritability (13:27)
• How do we navigate the relationship part and allow each party, sick person and caregiver, to have their feelings; where is the place for sacrifice while still taking care of yourself? (14:50)
• We need to teach people how to be with a person who is suffering (18:13)
• Do most of us grow wiser as we age? (20:32)
• The importance of reflection and taking responsibility for one’s life (23:08)
• How is God here with me—as caregiver, as provider, as patient? (24:19)
• Philosophy—the love of wisdom—and the importance of spiritual practice in preparation for illness and dying (27:26)
• We cannot separate suffering from life—they are...

Ep. 116 (Part 2 of 3) | Brad Reynolds, author of Embracing Reality: The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber and Where’s Wilber At? Ken Wilber’s Integral Vision in the New Millennium, gives us a beautiful distillation of Ken Wilber’s work, starting from the beginning and spanning decades. Not only does Brad elegantly relate the major themes of Ken’s work, he also makes clear the value of Ken’s contributions—the way this knowledge can be understood and applied to literally expand our notion of reality and evolve our consciousness. Brad deftly leads us through the subjects that Ken has developed: the spectrum of consciousness, the integration of science and religion, transcending and including what has come before, the importance of the transpersonal, and much more. We learn why Ken’s teachings are timeless and also so relevant and important today.

Brad’s scholarship, his own spiritual practice and insight, his engaging, easygoing style, and the close working relationship he had with Ken for many years make this podcast a goldmine for learning the essence of Ken’s theories, for deepening our appreciation of the magnitude of Ken’s understanding, and above all, the topics covered here point the way for us to evolve as human beings. We come to understand that integral is much more than a theory: it’s a practice, a call to grow and transcend, to become more inclusive, more responsive—to live our true potential. Brad eloquently brings it home just how much we need integral thinkers and leaders right now, with regressive developmental trends on the rise. Especially pertinent in our polarized society, integral shows us how to take all that is valuable within ostensibly conflicting worldviews and integrate it for the benefit of all. Recorded January 3, 2024.

“Reality encompasses all perspectives.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• How Phase 3 evolved: the importance of practice & the AQAL map (all quadrants, all stages, all lines, all states, all types) (00:49)
• No boundary awareness: the limits of the mind and how the heart becomes the driving force (04:19)
• Hierarchies and the great chain of being—the great nest of spirit—from matter to nature to body, mind, soul & spirit (08:33)
• Rescuing the interior from scientific materialism and the development of the four quadrants: interior elements of reality are just as authentic as exteriors (10:31) 
• The importance of a stable ego and the current emphasis on growing up and showing up to avoid spiritual bypassing (13:16)
• Finding our way in spiritual traditions, cults, and with gurus, and Ken’s map to distinguish spiritual teachers’ legitimacy, authenticity, and authority (17:16)
• The timeless nature of Ken’s teachings and how they point to the evolution of humanity (26:48)
• In a cult (and some religious traditions) we are looking for the leader to play our parent, submerging our autonomy (31:15)
• We are largely at an adolescent stage of development; the difference between adolescent and mature stages of development (33:03)
• Crucial distinctions between problematic spiritual groups and beneficial spiritual groups (35:49)
• Roger’s summary of Ken’s 4 phases, with phase 5 still to come (37:35)

Resources & References – Part 2

• Ken Wilber, 

Ep. 8 | An extraordinary, heartfelt conversation with spiritual practitioner, teacher, activist, Integralist, and author Terry Patten, who was at the time facing his own mortality following a recent diagnosis of a rare and aggressive cancer. An inner radiance shines forth as Terry, with much graciousness and candor, discusses the call to “get real”—not only personally but also collectively; his deepened perception of the “amazing grace of existence;” the directionality that has guided much of his life; and action inquiry: working on becoming next-stage human beings by experimenting with being the best people we can be. A touching and transformative talk, Terry conveys the deepening understanding coming from living on the edge and transmits a “radical okayness” with everything. Recorded September 21, 2021.

Terry Patten was a philosopher-activist, author, teacher and coach, community organizer, consultant, and social entrepreneur. Most recently Terry published A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries—a book summarizing his life’s work and offering an approach to facing the problems of our time. Over the last fifteen years, Terry devoted his efforts to the evolution of consciousness: facing, examining, and healing our global crisis through the marriage of spirit and activism. Terry co-wrote the book Integral Life Practice with Ken Wilber and a core team at the Integral Institute in 2008.

“I want us to recognize our tremendously strong impulse to draw a conclusion, to think we know. But it’s in the NOT knowing—the inquiry, the curiosity, the humility, the beginner’s mind—that we create a real opening.”

Topics & Time Stamps

• The call to “get real,” personally and collectively; waking up to the miracle of existence (04:17)
• With the diagnosis, the burden fell away (21:44)
• Mortality versus morbidity: many sufferings are worse than death (31:02)
• The directionality that guided Terry’s life and wanting to be “good” (41:11)
• Encountering his root guru, Adi Da (44:50)
• The importance of being kind (46:54)
• Let’s bend a knee to something greater than ourselves and LISTEN (53:43)
• The radical okayness of it all (55:52)
• Action inquiry and evolving into a new stage of human development (56:27)

Resources & References

• Terry Patten, A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries*
• The nonprofit organization A New Republic of the Heart invites spiritual practitioners and change agents to learn, practice, and collaborate in becoming the next-stage human beings who can rise to our collective moment.
• Terry Patten.com
• Rumi, “The Beloved,” The Way of the Sufi*
• Stephen Jenkinson, Die Wise*
• Adi Da, American spiritual...

Ep. 21 (Part 2 of 2) | Steve McIntosh, philosopher, author of the groundbreaking book Developmental Politics, and co-founder of the Institute for Cultural Evolution, outlines an extraordinary framework to make sense of our political conflicts—extraordinary in that it points to ways through and out of our persistent polarity consciousness. Steve convincingly argues our opportunity is right now: to create a synthesis, a cooperative agreement space, that transcends and includes thesis and antithesis, left and right, individual and community. Steve’s is a passionate and prophetic voice; there is hope for politics. With vertical development we can recover a common sense of truth, a common sense of goodness—transcendent ideals could become social norms. Steve ends with an invitation to listeners to investigate this new concept of cultural intelligence and the implications of the new truth: consciousness and culture co-evolve. Recorded on September 8, 2021.

“An Invitation to Creating a World That Works for Everybody”

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2

• The practice of virtues: character development is an important psychological technology (01:34)
• Deep happiness, Aristotle’s eudaimonia (05:07)
• Reestablishing cultural agreements around transcendent character development: an “upward current of the good” (06:48)
• How do you practice courage? (11:26)
• The magnetism towards being better: towards the good, the true, the beautiful (12:12)
• The evolutionary power of value polarities (13:05) 
• Understanding the new inter-subjective We Space: a social medicine that can help heal the wounds of history (20:11)
• How do we begin to walk this path of cultural emergence and post-progressivism as a practice? This new truth that consciousness and culture co-evolve? (21:43)
• The need to build a political movement, break through into mainstream culture with the new truth of the vertical dimension of development (25:27)
• Truth is one of the casualties of the current culture wars (28:25)
• How does technology come into it? (35:05)
• The Black Death plague and the impact of COVID-19 (38:14)
• With post-progressivism, we’re trying to negate the negations of progressivism (40:18)
• The role of contemplative practices and spiritual development in fostering psychological development and helping transcendent ideals become social norms (43:10)
• An invitation to listeners to participate and investigate this new cultural intelligence (48:41)

Resources & References - Part 2

• Aristotle’s eudaimonia, the highest human good
• Create your personal Portrait of the Good, online character development exercise at Institute for Cultural Evolution
• Lao Tzu, Heraclitus, Nicholas of

Ep. 3 (Part 1 of 2) | In this riveting, mind opening (and bending) conversation, philosopher and peak performance expert Jamie Wheal takes our existential metacrisis head on, asking and often answering the biggest questions we, the human race, face today. “How do we do this human thing with our heads up and our hearts open and not get crushed by the tragedies and absurdities of it all?” “How can we tune into the wisdom, the transpersonal heights?” More than inspirational, this conversation is like an infusion of the energetic, coherent, transpersonal potential of human beings. Guaranteed, you won’t see things the same way after listening. Recorded on September 15, 2021.

Jamie Wheal is the author of Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind and the global bestseller Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work. He’s also the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance. Jamie’s work and ideas have been covered in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, Entrepreneur, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc., and TED. Jamie has spoken at Stanford University, MIT, the Harvard Club, Imperial College, Singularity University, the U.S. Naval War College and Special Operations Command, Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, the Bohemian Club, and the United Nations.

Topics & Timestamps - Part 1

• Getting off the grid not to survive but to thrive (01:52)
• Facing the challenges of our time is a cycle: remaining open, learning to fall gracefully, maintaining center (03:25)
• Jamie’s practices, the 4 M’s: Music, Mountains, Mushrooms, Marriage (09:02)
• The beautiful American, antinomian, mystical tradition (10:32)
• Who throughout history really got “into the pudding”? (13:55)
• Jamie’s dark night of the soul (16:52) 
• The psychedelic renaissance, reconciling repeat transformations, and the question “How much do we change, really?” (20:20)
• Our mythic lives vs our biographic lives (22:24) 
• The universal agenda and Chris Bache’s LSD and the Mind of the Universe (24:06)
• The “information layer” that comes from Source; baffling precision along with evidence of the trickster (27:25) 
• Wrestling with the existential situation using the mountaineer’s “risk triangle” (30:30) 
• The only question we should be addressing: Can we get onto an S curve of a renewable, sustainable, and equitable economy? (32:05) 
• How can we use peak experiences? How can we tune into our highest, best life? Hedonic engineering (36:48)
• How to create a flywheel effect: practice daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally, annually (40:36) 
• The Ten Suggestions (vs The Ten Commandments): An update (43:15)
• The false certainty of the newly converted (46:46)
• Recultivating the elements of mystery and the trickster of the divine (47:41)
• The weak link: after opening consistently to mystical states...what do you do Monday morning? (Stabilization of states to traits) (48:19)

Resources & References - Part 1

• Jamie Wheal, Stealing Fire*
• Jamie Wheal, Recapture the...

Ep. 133 (Part 1 of 2) | Author, podcaster, farmer, and poet, Brendan Graham Dempsey, brings passion, dedication, clarity, and outstanding scholarship to the fascinating and enormously important study of cultural evolution, which operates on both a personal level and a collective one. He illuminates how, when, and why we shift from one cultural worldview to the next, using his own life’s journey through the cultural stages as a map and paints colorful portraits of the outstanding characteristics of each stage: traditional/premodern, modern, postmodern, and metamodern. Brendan enlightens us as to the tumultuous and often lonely and despairing time that occurs when our prior stage has been deconstructed and we find ourselves between worldviews in a liminal space where sensemaking fails. As he puts it, we live in certain worlds to help us navigate reality. But then things change, and we bump up against the limits of things. Now the time has come to update our sense of the world; we are invited to expand and grow.

We come to understand why it is necessary for cultures to evolve—to accommodate ever increasing complexity—and why culture wars and confusion result from misunderstanding a worldview that infiltrates your psyche before it’s ready. Brendan explains why postmodernism does not serve us now, introducing and inviting us to the new, emerging worldview of metamodernism, where there is hope in positivity, affirmation, and aspirational idealism. Hope, and the promise of coming together in a new understanding among peoples, a prerequisite for dealing with the challenges of the global crises that affect us all. Brendan brings a big heart, keen mind, and a lot of verve to these complex subjects, which come alive under his brilliant tutelage. As he points out, deconstructing the psyche can help save the world, adding, this is a lot of what the metamodern community is trying to get the word out about. Recorded May 1, 2024.

“It’s absolutely essential that some folks, anyway, try to break through to this other way of seeing that can get us beyond the limits of our worldviews at the moment…in a way that allows us to keep moving forward rather than back.“

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing cultural evolution pioneer, author, poet, farmer, and spiritual podcaster, Brendan Graham Dempsey (01:35)
• What are the stages our culture has been through? (03:13)
• Premodern is the traditional stage, linked to the great Axial Age religions that started up around 500 BC (04:56)
• Modernity was initiated with the move out of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance; postmodernity flowered in the mid 20th century; metamodernity dawned around 2000 (06:14)
• What are the more subtle differences that constitute these shifts between cultures or worldviews? (07:19)
• Language is the medium that shapes us individually and shapes how culture plays out: using a psychological lens to look at the complexification process of modes of thought (08:59)
• The relation between metamodern and integral thought and the new emerging stage of consciousness (12:10)
• Cultural evolution plays out at the individual level too (16:37)
• Brendan’s characterization of cultural stages based on his own life’s development, beginning with his youth in a traditional household, where faith relates to day-to-day living and miracles happen (17:58)
• Brendan’s...

Ep. 128 (Part 1 of 2) | Environmental philosopher, public health scientist, and corporate malfeasance researcher Dr. Yogi Hendlin is dedicated to understanding, communicating, and addressing the psychological, social, political, and economic barriers that keep us from treading a solid path toward sustainability. One of the areas Yogi is extremely knowledgeable about is the dynamics and drivers of corporate decision making. An underlying belief that the planet is indestructible makes it okay to prioritize profit above global health, or companies may find themselves in a double bind where they would actually prefer to be more strictly regulated but that would mean corporate suicide unless their entire industry was regulated. Interestingly, Yogi has found that learned helplessness operates at all levels of power in inverse relation to actual power and responsibility, citing how some of the most powerful people in the world are saying, “What can I do?” when Indigenous groups with very few resources find ways to thrive in a sustainable way.

Yogi points out that changing the world is not an event but a process—and delves into how we can make real changes to get off the destructive path we are on, overshooting the limits of our biosphere on every metric. We can create circuit breakers for our habitual, counterproductive routines, we can cultivate skillful communication that allows our defense mechanisms to drop away, we can recognize our fundamental need for community and connection, and we can use spiritual practice and psychedelics to help us regain a sense of wonder and reverence for life. Yogi believes that decolonization and creating ecologies of discourse that reward honesty, vulnerability, admitting mistakes, and asking for help is the way forward. This is an earnest, thought provoking, heartfelt, and inspiring discussion of the way things are, the barriers to change, and hope for the future. Recorded January 11, 2024.

“We live disconnected from each other because we don’t need each other.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing environmental philosopher, public health scientist, professor & corporate malfeasance researcher, Dr. Yogi Hendlin (01:05)
• Yogi has coined the term “chemical anthropocene” in reference to the indelible legacy we have created in changing the composition of the earth’s chemistry (and our bodies) (02:18)
• “Forever chemicals” bioaccumulate in our systems and persist up to 7 generations (04:18)
• Humans are already bearing a toxic load, and we’re creating a path dependency of toxicity for future generations (06:09)
• How can we evolve collectively to respond effectively? (07:51)
• All day, we are called into being in different ways, some very tension inducing, and we have erected barriers to our unmediated appreciation of the world in response to these demands (12:12)
• We can practice different ways of attending (i.e. fasting from media, eating, work, routine) that act as circuit breakers to our culture’s destructive habits (13:57)
• The age-old separation between understanding the world through analysis and understanding reality by becoming part of the mindset of the other (15:20)
• Being open to novelty (apophatic) while also reaffirming the knowledge we already have (cataphatic): the rise of LGBTQ, for example (17:37)
• Does the “arc of the moral...

Ep. 164 (Part 1 of 2) | Tami Simon, founder of the highly regarded multimedia publishing company Sounds True, covers a lot of inspiring ground in this heartening, lively, candid conversation. She tells the extraordinary story of how she came to devote herself to disseminating spiritual wisdom; about finding the edges and growing into them on her own path of awakening; the spiritual teachers she has encountered whose teachings have affected her the most; the wholeness of spiritual vision and psychological health; and discovering that, like all of us, spiritual leaders can be both luminous and in need of healing at the same time. Tami is an ardent torchbearer for the conscious business movement, explaining that business can be the way we give our gifts—that the endeavors of an inspired entrepreneur can be expressions of love and provide an incredible way of connecting with other people.

What is so striking throughout is the depth of Tami’s clarity about what matters in life and her unwavering commitment to acting with integrity. Tami has a remarkable ability to translate her spiritual insights and principles into action—as co-host Roger Walsh points out, she is a beautiful example of a karma yogic life, where being of service is the fuel, the inspiration, and the content of her life, as she continuously works towards furthering both her own spiritual awakening and the awakening of all. Tami offers a lovely, poetic rendering of the effects of living a true and meaningful life: “The litmus test is always somebody’s wake, the ripples of their life, how they’ve impacted others . . . the beauty, love, and justice that live in the wake of a person.” A genuinely engaging, illuminating, memorable conversation. Recorded October 17, 2024.

“If our spiritual vision doesn’t translate into treating ourselves and other people, and the environment and the world well, and building a just society, I’m not interested in it.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing founder of the multimedia publishing company Sounds True, author, entrepreneur & popular podcast host, Tami Simon (00:53)
• What is the spirit or ideal animating Tami’s venture? Broadcast awakening! (02:20)
• Tami was given 3 words right at the start: disseminate spiritual wisdom (03:47)
• The origin of Sounds True: synchronicities, altered state experience, and the concept of transformational economy (05:30)
• How Vipassana retreats changed Tami (10:10)
• Tami wanted to understand Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory in her body, in her bones (12:24)
• Meditation felt like a homecoming, a sense of belonging as never before: this is how it feels to feel okay (15:03)
• Sounds True has been Tami’s “ground of growth,” an incredible crucible—because it’s so stressful (18:12)
• Heart opening experiences keep on going (20:20)
• Entrepreneurial endeavors as an expression of love (23:05)
• Service is inherent in the energy of the human heart (26:30)
• Integrity is critical: a grace field rooted in the central part of the body (30:29)
• Responding to the many problems of contemporary media and our media-ted lives (36:43)
• What is the most strategic and economic way I can serve? (41:20)
• Technological change and Tami’s willingness to adapt (42:33)

Resources &...

Ep. 137 (Dialogue 1, Part 1 of 2) | In this rich and engaging conversation, the first episode of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali gives us a beautiful overview of the Diamond Approach, which is a brilliant integration of teachings and a path of awakening born out of his own direct experience and informed by his deep understanding of the world’s great spiritual traditions and modern psychology. Here, Hameed details the many facets of the Diamond Approach that make it unique among spiritual paths, which leads down several intriguing avenues of exploration: What is the Diamond Approach’s understanding of the soul? How does spiritual guidance work? What are the four turnings that give context and structure to students on this spiritual path? Hameed delves, too, into the importance of inquiry on our road to discovering our true nature, love’s role in allowing us to trust reality, and the importance of realizing that the ultimate lives within each individual.

Hameed also shares personal aspects of his journey: how he was guided from the precise field of physics to the field of psychology, how he came to the revelation of the human soul, and what he attributes to why he has been so receptive to spiritual openings and realizations throughout his life. The Diamond Approach is not only about discovering the nature of absolute reality—it is also about realizing ultimate consciousness in ordinary life, to experience the beauty and richness of a life lived in simple freedom and enjoyment. As Hameed says, “Know, by engaging the path, it is possible to be free.” Recorded June 13, 2024.

“Regardless of how transcendent or vast, nondual or whatever, is the ultimate nature, the important thing is how it lives as an individual human being living an ordinary human life and enjoying this life the way it can be enjoyed—to the fullest of its possibilities.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, exploring the complete path of awakening developed by Hameed Ali—the Diamond Approach (01:06)
• John speaks to how this podcast series is based on Hameed’s life’s work, summarized in his transformative book The Inner Journey Home (04:46)
• The Inner Journey Home: a brilliant integration of teachings as well as a first person account of divine grace (07:34)
• What is the Diamond Approach and why is it unique? (09:34)
• The inner body is the lens that, as it turns, sees reality in a different way and reveals different teachings (12:13)
• The Diamond Approach recognizes the validity of many different spiritual traditions and that there are multiple possible realizations (15:00)
• After a Nyingma empowerment workshop, Hameed realized a different universe than the Dzogchen universe (16:28)
• How does spiritual guidance work? It guides the consciousness in how to be open to the next revelation (17:25)
• A universal commonality the Diamond Approach has with all spiritual teachings is that there is a true spiritual nature to all being, all life (18:44)
• The Diamond Approach emphasizes that this life has its own value (21:37)
• The individual is not an illusion—the human soul is an expression of fundamental reality manifesting as individual consciousness...

Ep. 122 (Part 2 of 3) | Joseph Goldstein, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, brilliant spiritual teacher, and prolific author, whose books have been foundational to many people’s understanding of Buddhism, mindfulness, and insight meditation, shares rich nuggets of wisdom stemming from a lifetime of ever-deepening practice. The focus of this conversation remains very much in the present, as Joseph describes how the leading edge of his practice never stops moving forward and how his understanding of the most basic ideas becomes ever more refined and liberating. In sharing his insights, he sheds light on and smooths the path for the rest of us: about the mysterious arising of compassion, made easier the more open we are and the less self-referential, about reframing our experience in a way that frees us, about spontaneous responsiveness, and about awakening being a gradual process—until it’s sudden.

Joseph’s new favorite definition of enlightenment is “lightening up” for the way it conveys a sense of making progress along a journey. And with his humor, humility, and easy, lighthearted manner, Joseph exemplifies and transmits a lighter way of being in the world. He makes it ever so clear that spiritual practice and meditation, examining and investigating our experience moment to moment, naturally leads us to compassionate responsiveness and out of the shackles of what binds us to a self that is ultimately just a construct. Recorded November 2, 2023.

“The forward edge has more to do with the attitude of exploration rather than any particular thing.“

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• The mysterious arising of compassion and what does this say about the nature of reality? (00:52)
• Compassion is the manifestation of emptiness; responsiveness is the activity of emptiness (03:00)
• Understanding bodhicitta (05:47)
• The near enemy of compassion is sorrow, because in sorrow is aversion (09:57)
• Moving out of sorrow to compassionate response transfigures sorrow into an uplifting energy: moving from self to non-self (13:52) 
• How unwholesome mind patterns keep us bound, and uprooting the first 3 fetters/defilements in the 1st stage of enlightenment (17:36)
• Desire and aversion are uprooted at the third stage of enlightenment but conceit, or some manifestation of “I am-ing,” remains (19:47)
• The experience of the zero center: when we know unmistakably that self is a construct—still there are still deeply conditioned habits of mind, one of which is the habit pattern “I am” (21:38)
• The power of recognizing the particular defilement that triggers our suffering (23:50)
• Don’t conflate clear perception, recognition, with mindfulness—recognizing fear is different from accepting fear (29:59)

Resources & References – Part 2

• Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche & Lama Surya Das, Natural Great Perfection*
• Ram Dass & Paul Gorman, How Can I Help*

Ep. 141 (Part 1 of 2) | Award-winning author of The Web of Meaning and founder of the Deep Transformation Network, Jeremy Lent, relates how his discovery of systems thinking opened the door to a whole new way of making sense of the world and illumined his in depth exploration of what creates meaning. In looking into what forms concepts like God, soul, humanity, nature, and science, Jeremy came to understand the thinking that has led to the existential crisis we face now, then began to explore what it would take to break out of the worldview that has caused so much destruction on so many levels. Jeremy integrates systems thinking with concepts from evolutionary biology, neuroscience, ecology, and traditional and indigenous wisdom, forming a holistic view of science, where “maybe the distinction between science and spirituality isn’t really valid.”

Jeremy’s heartfelt intention is to act as translator—to make it enjoyable for people to explore difficult concepts like consciousness and evolutionary biology they might otherwise steer away from—as well as be a catalyst for large-scale transformation. His vision of a potential future “ecological civilization” builds on the evolutionary success of life itself—ecosystems living in mutual symbiosis—and includes the idea of “islands of coherence” which would provide a bridge from a disintegrating society to a new and flourishing one. Systems thinking, like indigenous wisdom, recognizes the deep connectedness of all things, a realization, Jeremy points out, that leads to the knowing that nothing is inevitable and the choices we make matter. Jeremy leaves us with a sense of agency and of liberation, as well as a sense of responsibility to work together in the shaping of a life-affirming, sustainable future. Recorded June 20, 2024.

“Every aspect of our world today is founded ultimately on the worldview of reductionism…If we were to design or co-create a civilization built on a sense of deep connectedness, it would look very different.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Jeremy Lent, award-winning author, integrator, founder of the Deep Transformation Network (01:15)
• What does meaning come from? Where do mainstream concepts like God, soul, humanity, and nature come from? (02:58)
• What’s considered valid science turns out to be reductionism and Jeremy’s subsequent discovery of systems science & complexity science (05:25)
• Jeremy’s intention is to act as translator—make it a joy for people to explore concepts like consciousness and evolutionary biology (08:50)
• The concept of reductionism (09:36)
• Where reductionism goes wrong and why systems thinking is so important: studying the relationship between things (12:19)
• Richard Dawkins attributes everything to our genes, but the reality is far more complex (13:53)
• What the modern worldview of reductionism has done to our society (16:59) 
• Jeremy’s new book, Ecological Civilization, applies the principles of ecology that life itself evolved to every aspect of our civilization (18:43)
• The difference between the metacrisis and the polycrisis: is there something meta, above all the crises, that we need to be aware of? (20:44)
• The reductionist worldview creates a separatist world that allows for resource exploitation: capitalism is the economic...

Ep. 91 (Part 1 of 3) | Integral psychotherapist Mark Forman, author of the seminal work A Guide to Integral Psychotherapy, doesn’t mince words when it comes to the field he is passionate about: helping people out of their mental pain and dysphoria. Mark’s Integral perspective and longtime work in the trenches—with clients from all income levels, political persuasions, and levels of development—put him in a unique position to illuminate us as to the nuances of the hot button issues new to psychotherapy or ones that have suddenly exploded in numbers: misuse of the term trauma and its diagnostic creep, what the research says about the effectiveness of psychedelics to treat mental health disorders and what that portends for the future, the exponentially growing trend of teenage girls deciding they are transgender and the crying need for more data to help with counseling transgender and trans-curious youth, what is causing the loneliness epidemic, the pressing need to reimagine the male role to balance how feminism has changed the female role, and more. 

Mark describes the “therapeutic zone” that can happen in therapy when inspiration strikes, and shares the latest research on what makes therapists into “super-shrinks” who have client outcomes ten times better than average. He also relates how living in our psychologized culture affects therapy, and how it can get tricky when therapist and client are at different levels of development. Mark’s vast knowledge and big heart shine through the many topics he delves into and his tales of actual therapeutic encounters are eye opening and moving. This is an impassioned, courageous conversation on the front lines of mental health and psychotherapy. Recorded May 4, 2023.

“The therapist is the priest of our times…imbued with a certain amount of metaphysical responsibility. So when the therapeutic field gets out of balance, it makes a difference.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Integral psychotherapist Mark Forman, author of A Guide to Integral Psychotherapy and The Monster’s Journey: From Trauma to Connection (00:52)
• How we have moved from the animistic to the religious to the scientific worldview, and now look at the world through a predominantly psychological perspective (02:25)
• 42 million people in the U.S. interacted with therapy or counseling, which is up 20 million people from the year 2000 (03:41)
• The therapist is the priest of our times…imbued with a certain amount of metaphysical responsibility. So when the therapeutic field gets out of balance, it makes a difference (06:41)
• Has there been a shift in what clients are bringing up? It’s still often about love or work, as Freud said; diagnoses are depression, anxiety, panic disorder, bipolar, eating disorders, substance abuse (09:20)
• What might be new is people venting their political worries, gender dynamics, and how informed people are about psychology, largely via the internet (10:45)
• Positive effects of people being more informed about their own condition (13:35)
• What are the negative effects of the psychologization of our culture? Falsely self-labeling disorders (15:25)
• The paradoxical nature of labels and the skillful use of labels (20:15)
• The phenomenon of diagnostic creep in recent decades, especially in regard to trauma...

Ep. 176 (Part 3 of 3) | Longtime spiritual practitioner, gifted teacher, Tibetan Buddhist lama, and developmental psychology specialist Kimberley Lafferty integrates contemporary psychology and wisdom tradition in this lively, luminous conversation about the process of awakening, the evolution of ethics, and the extraordinary capacities that come online as we mature into later stages of development. What do developmental perspectives have to add to our understanding of human nature and to spiritual practice? Our meaning-making shifts radically as we develop, Kimberley says, and because of that our reality itself shifts. This is why communicating with people with very different points of view can fail so miserably—one person’s reality is simply not the same as the next person’s reality. We need to discern, what is their meaning-making reality in this moment? What is ours?

Throughout, Kimberley grounds the discussion in practical, real-life scenarios; she also shares intriguing research on later stage development that has found that as we mature, our senses evolve: our hearing evolves to deep attunement; our seeing evolves to witnessing, our capacity of touch evolves to embody presence. It’s exciting and inspiring to see the road ahead, to acquire new insights and tools to improve communication across cultural (and age) divides, to have the concept of bodhicitta unpacked so deftly and common misperceptions about emptiness corrected—and to witness Kimberley’s wise and zesty approach to life: “What connects us all is our luminous, aware consciousness,” she says, “and if we can lean into the messiness, I think we can find our way through.” Recorded October 3, 2024.

“How can I reconstruct myself to be truth, goodness, and beauty?”

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 3

• What are some of the capacities that come online as people mature? (01:26)
• At late stage development, people awaken to individual construction; this is meta-awareness or 5th person perspective (03:40)
• It’s like waking up in a lucid dream and realizing you’re dreaming (06:00)
• How can I reconstruct myself to be truth, goodness, and beauty? (07:24)
• Development is a balloon, not a ladder (10:15)
• How developmental theory illuminates broader perspective taking: the capacity of skillful means (13:12)
• Siddhis (transpersonal powers) start to come on: precognitive capacities, the capacity of empathy (16:24)
• What challenges come about as we develop? (17:40)
• What connects us is our luminous, aware consciousness—if we can lean into the messiness, we can find our way through (22:43)
• What are humans becoming? The possibility of becoming trans-human (25:28)
• In later stages, our senses evolve: our hearing evolves to deep attunement; our seeing evolves to witnessing, to see through time and space, our capacity of touch evolves to embody presence (28:49)
• Seeing polarities rather than opposites: polarities are the building blocks of how we construct reality (31:50)
• Bodhicitta taps us into our ultimate nature (35:12)
• Correcting misperceptions of the bodhisattva vow (40:34)
• The tradition of debate in the Tibetan-Buddhist tradition (42:30)
• You are not alone; there is spiritual support available (45:36)

Resources & References

• Kimberley Lafferty’s website: The Confluence Experience (Education,...

Ep. 36 | Philosopher, author, and social entrepreneur Tomas Björkman’s claims are convincing: our culture needs to go through a new developmental paradigm shift. Either it will grow more complex—or crumble, as empires have crumbled in the past. The collective worldview needs to change, and to that end Tomas’ focus is on the relationship between growing our personal psychological maturity and societal change, a relationship Nordic countries recognized to their great advantage towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Extrapolating from his vast experience with business leadership, where inner psychological maturity turns out to be a foremost aspect of success, Tomas extends this knowledge, applying it to all of society, and emphasizes the importance of supporting a lifelong inner process of development for every individual. The only hope for our shared future seems to lie in wiser decision making by individuals who have expanded both mind and heart to encompass the greater complexities of our time. Recorded on December 2019, with Dr. Roger Walsh, John Dupuy, and Douglas Prater.

“Conscious effort on large-scale consciousness development actually worked.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Note: This podcast was recorded live and includes, at times, some extraneous noises in the background. Please excuse them -- we felt the conversation was very valuable and well worth sharing with our audience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Topics & Time Stamps

• Introducing Tomas Björkman: philosopher, author, entrepreneur (02:28)
• Tomas’ unique contribution: cultivating psychological maturity individually and collectively, in order to co-create a new culture and survive as a species (03:39)
• Inner psychological maturation is one of the most important aspects of a good businessman, a good leader; this knowledge needs to be applied to all of us and society as a whole (05:12)
• The importance of getting the corporate culture right, societal culture right, and support inner psychological development (06:37)
• Our worldview in the West hasn’t changed since the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason: it’s time for another deep shift to encompass greater complexity (09:49)
• Looking at culture (and consciousness) as a complex, self-organizing, evolving system: we have reached the bifurcation point (14:47)
• The Nordic secret: Scandinavian countries realized the connection between the maturity of our inner world and our society at the end of the 1800s, becoming the happiest, richest, most stable countries in the world (24:24)
• The establishment of retreat centers for young people to find their inner compass and creating a critical mass of self-authoring people (28:20)
• Maturing from the socialized mind to the self-authoring mind, from conventional to postconventional (30:15)
• Consciously navigating psychological transformation and the self-transforming mind (34:24)
• The corporate realization that to succeed in business, you need your employees to mature to the level of self-authoring mind: Deliberately Developmental Organizations (37:54)
• The German idealistic philosophers’ reaction against Enlightenment philosophy and the evolution of mind and heart: Bildung (39:30)
• What constitutes depth of relationship? Inner development, deepening of...

Ep. 33 | Zvi Ish-Shalom is a professor of Jewish mysticism, an author, an ordained rabbi, and the guiding light of Kedumah, a teaching out of time and space, whose primary calling is to translate wisdom from the primordial ground of being into a discernible wisdom stream. In this remarkable conversation, Zvi describes how he found ways to map and interpret his own profound mystical experiences, how the teachings arise from the ground of being, about how they might become accessible to us all, regardless of religion or spiritual tradition, and how they are especially relevant for young people today, seeking to find a structure for their spiritual journey. His familiarity with the realm of mystical experience is extremely engaging—he tells of discovering the vow taken by our soul before we were born and dropping the barriers between us and God, surrendering to the divine. Roger Walsh found Zvi’s book The Kedumah Experience “the most profound spiritual text he’s ever read in the Jewish tradition,” and listeners will almost certainly be excited to read Zvi’s latest book, published since the recording of this podcast, The Path of Primordial Light: Ancient Wisdom for the Here and Now.  Recorded at the Science & Nonduality Conference, October 2019, with Dr. Roger Walsh, John Dupuy, and Douglas Prater.

“Being willing to lose everything for truth...when we orient that way, the most profound revelations and depths occur.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Note: This podcast was recorded live and includes, at times, some extraneous noises in the background. Please excuse them -- we felt the conversation was very valuable and well worth sharing with our audience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Topics & Time Stamps

• Roger’s discovery of Zvi Ish-Shalom’s book while touring Israel: the most profound spiritual text he’d ever read in the Jewish tradition (02:00)
• The gnostic intermediary: how Zvi revives the culture, infusing a fresh understanding of the Jewish mystical tradition (04:43)
• Zvi’s personal story, starting with deep states of connection praying in the synagogue in Brooklyn (07:40)
• How Zvi found ways to map and interpret his profound mystical experiences, establishing cause and effect (13:45)
• Remembering one’s life purpose, the vow taken by your soul before embodiment (17:47)
• Zvi’s Kedumah experience: the concept of primordial Torah, or the ground of our being, and how the teaching arises (19:57)
• How to transmit the Kedumah teachings to the secular world? (22:32)
• The radical experiential perspective in which the Kedumah is rooted is what makes it so timely for us today (28:17)
• Revivifying the Jewish lineage wisdom stream through the lens of Kedumah: bringing in living expressions of the mystery (31:26)
• The way in which a profound analytical study of the texts creates an opening and becomes a process of illumination, deepening, and distilling truth in an ever more discriminating way (37:35) 
• What the new Kedumah paradigm offers young people who are searching for structure for their spiritual journey  (43:27)
• The practice of dialectical inquiry (havruta) to discover the truth of reality embedded inside the texts and how to reveal it (48:20)
• Comparing the Torah scroll to the human being: working to unpack...

Ep. 44 (Part 2 of 2) | A.H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), renowned author and co-creator of the Diamond Approach, a complete spiritual path that flows out of his direct personal experience and realization, informed by the great wisdom traditions and practices, describes here his own process of inquiry and some of what he has come to discover in his lifelong pursuit to understand the nature of reality and know the truth. 

Hameed tells us answers come in the form of experiences rather than words and that there is no end to what we can realize about our true nature and reality itself. He talks about experiencing the authentic presence of being; the dynamics of realization; the paradox of practice; the importance of curiosity; and the joy of discovery. What makes time possible and what makes timelessness possible? What happens when we die? Throughout the conversation, Hameed transmits a quiet exuberance, humor, profound wisdom, and deep peace. This is a remarkable, inspiring, sometimes astonishing dialogue that will illuminate and exhilarate your understanding of the nature of reality and our potential as human beings. Recorded August 10, 2022.

“Reality really has much more up its sleeve than any human being can imagine.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2

• On death: each of us has a particular consciousness that is undying; death is not the end, but how we live our life will influence how we die and afterwards (00:53)
• Is an initial activation—a “close encounter of the third kind with true nature”—a requirement to enter the Ridhwan School? (07:49)
• What is “runaway realization''? There’s no end to what you can realize about reality or yourself (09:18)
• The importance of true curiosity (12:30)
• The experience of pure, absolute time: what makes time possible and timelessness possible? An example of Hameed’s own inquiry process (13:29) 
• Spiritual discourse and non-standard realization (15:57)
• Becoming alive to the zen of ordinariness (20:02)
• Hameed’s practice: continual inquiry and meditation (22:31)
• Most of Hameed’s awakenings don’t happen in meditation (24:47)
• The dynamic of realization: practice opens us to grace (25:56)
• Opening to transmission (31:59)
• A new kind of presence: non-standard presence is very important to opening to runaway realization (33:12)
• In the depths of nondual realization something arises (36:51)

Resources & References - Part 2

• The Ten Ox Herding Pictures from the Zen tradition 
• Vajra Body, symbol of highest spiritual power
• Hameed Ali, creator of The Ridhwan School and The Diamond Path
• A. H. Almaas, Runaway...

Ep. 111 (Part 2 of 2) | Colette Baron-Reid and Dr. Bob Weathers shine a bright light on the big picture state of addiction in our fragmented culture today—how people have become addicted to disconnection, dissociation, and identifying as victims in addition to substance use and other more traditional addictions—as well as sharing the essential elements and practices that have made their sustained long-term recovery possible. Dr. Bob explains that the first step in addressing addiction is to humanize the conversation around it and why. Our tendency toward addiction is universal, embedded in human nature itself, for one. And research shows that people who have suffered childhood trauma are five to ten times more susceptible to becoming addicts—their stress threshold five to ten times lower than other people’s, their stress hormones five to ten times higher. Studies also show that addiction is the most highly stigmatized mental disorder of all. It is humbling to realize what addicts are up against, calling us to compassion, understanding, and action.

Both Colette and Bob are solidly grounded in long-term sobriety and deeply dedicated to helping others out of their suffering. Top down, intellectual information is clearly not adequate to sustain recovery—so what is? Spiritual connection, social connection, shadow work, healing shame, surrendering. As Colette says, “In recovery, you discover there is something greater than yourself, your pain, your story, and your limitations—this is the solace.” There comes a turning point when it stops being all about us, and the desire to serve arises. With service comes the all-important experience of belonging. As Bob relates, “It’s not just about not drugging or drinking—I want a vital life.” And what is missing on a global, universal level? Again, connection and community. Recorded August 28, 2023. 

“Gratitude is the abracadabra that creates our reality. Forgiveness is essential too.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Trauma feeds directly into addiction: studies show childhood trauma victims are 5 to 10 times more at risk for addiction (00:59)
• Shadow work is absolutely required to sustain sobriety (05:07)
• Dealing with the shame element of shadow (06:58)
• Surrendering, letting go, opening up to other individuals and to your higher power (09:40)
• Living in 24-hour compartments (13:52)
• The effects of COVID on addiction: living in uncertainty and disconnection and how fear isolates us (15:07)
• Ideology addiction (20:40)
• The spiritual aspect of recovery (22:37)
• Colette’s practices today: conscious connection with a higher power, therapy, EMDR, cultivating humor, and more (25:39)  
• Bob’s recovery practice and how it evolved (30:09)
• The bedrock of forgiveness practice and gratitude practice (31:29)
• Service and love: you matter (37:23)

Resources & References – Part 2

• CDC’s Adverse Childhood Experience studies 
• John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds...

Ep. 13 (Part 2 of 2) | Dan Millman has shown us how to live with both a peaceful heart and a warrior’s spirit for forty years. His new book Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit shares his reflections on the extraordinary experiences that shaped his evolution from youthful dreamer to spiritual teacher. Dan’s first book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, was a bestseller and adapted into a feature film. Dan is a former world trampoline champion, Stanford University gymnastics coach, martial arts instructor, and Oberlin college professor. His 18 books are published in 29 languages. Dan has traveled widely, teaching in over thirty countries. To learn more about his books, events, online courses, and free life-purpose calculator, visit www.PeacefulWarrior.com.

Dan Millman, a man who has devoted his life to mastery—in sports and in the arena of life itself—and author of the book that opened doors for so many, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, published in the 80s, talks about inspiration, talent, discipline, mastery, ordinary life, and his own path, practices, teachers, and new book, Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit: The True Story of My Spiritual Quest. Humorous and humble, Dan embodies the peaceful warrior way, centering his life around service, sharing his wisdom, and living the question, “What needs doing right now?” Recorded on October 20, 2021.

“There are no ordinary moments.”

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2

• Dan’s teachers: the professor, the guru, and spiritual technology (01:37)
• On cults (07:52)
• The first 5 levels of consciousness: blind belief, conventional reality, St. Ego, the philosopher, disillusion (13:22)
• Dan’s daily practices and the 4-minute meditation on the process of dying (22:46)
• The fundamental foundation of the peaceful warrior’s way (25:17)
• The Zen of ordinariness (27:07)
• Dan’s teachers: the warrior-priest, David Reynolds (29:13)
• On gratitude (33:41)
• Approaching life as an experiment and action inquiry (39:04)
• Carlos Castaneda’s four natural enemies of man: fear, clarity, power, and old age (41:02)
• Dan’s guiding question (45:26)

Resources & References - Part 2

• Adi Da, American spiritual teacher
• Carl Jung, “...making the darkness conscious.”
• Arthur Deikman, pioneering psychiatrist*
• The 4-minute Peaceful Warrior Meditation
• The Ten Ox Herding Pictures from the Zen tradition
• Dan Millman, The Life You Were Born to Live*
• David Reynolds, Constructive Living*
• Bill Torbert,

Ep. 152 (Part 2 of 2) | Life coach, recovery coach, and plant medicine ceremonialist Ron Interpreter has created a multidimensional, whole person healing modality that integrates Navajo spiritual teachings and traditions with Ken Wilber’s Integral Model and Integral spirituality. Humanity is shifting, Ron explains, and is now looking to the teachings of the ancestors and Indigenous practices that can bring a sense of authenticity, purpose, and meaning to our lives. Native spirituality teaches us how we can relate to the elements of earth, fire, water and air in terms of remedies and medicines, and also in terms of beliefs and emotional connections. Plant medicine and other mind-altering ceremonies provide us with the means to get beyond the psychological limitations we put on ourselves, attain higher states of consciousness, and receive answers to our deepest questions.

With a calm, articulate fervency, Ron shares the ancestral wisdom he teaches to people in recovery or who are suffering from trauma, including special ops forces and veterans: the Native concepts of taking responsibility, being accountable, forging a relationship with God or Spirit, and living from a profound understanding of what it means to be a human being. “We are in the creation of self—how do we practice our selves?” Ron asks. The Indigenous teachings that Ron brings forward provide a deep sense of grounding in Nature and Spirit, as we come to a better understanding of our place in the universe and the practices that can open us up to living in a sacred way, in connection with divine being. Recorded August 1, 2024.

“We have to see ourselves as human beings first.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Stopping the blame game—blaming colonialism—and healing intergenerational trauma (01:28)
• How do we practice our selves? Get back to our ancestral ways, see ourselves as human beings first (05:06)
• The future of recovery depends on the expansion of the practitioner’s approach and getting back to the elementals (11:00)
• What are the most valuable Native practices for healing and recovery? (18:10)
• Psychedelic medicines are tools to get beyond the psychological limitations we put on ourselves (23:52)
• Ceremony is vitally important to give context and reverence to a plant medicine experience (25:04)
• Building character in young people (26:11)
• In order for you to receive the medicine, you need to have a spiritual practice (28:29)
• At Ron’s church, a long period of practicing breathwork and other modalities will often precede the use of psychedelic tools (32:15)
• Facilitating plant medicine ceremonies for special ops forces and veterans (34:55)
• Native traditions are now accessible to help people understand what it means to be human (40:02)
• The future of addiction, especially with addictive potentials increasing exponentially (42:49) 
• We have to stop looking at addiction as your experience, my experience (48:49)

Resources & References – Part 2

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Ep. 24 (Part 1 of 2) | Thomas Hübl, renowned spiritual teacher, author, expert on collective trauma, and creator and facilitator of The Collective Trauma Integration Process, shares fascinating, life changing information about the dynamics of collective trauma—how it is embodied and perpetuated in the language we use, and how we are bound together in a sort of “mutual collusion” that predisposes us to repeat our past, and to repeat over and over the things we would much rather leave behind. With remarkable insight and wisdom garnered from years of study, exploration, and effectively working with large groups to integrate collective shadow, Thomas also explains how we can create space for a new future by metabolizing the suffering held in both our personal and collective unconscious and making awakening and spiritual clarity the indubitable priority of our lives. Recorded at the Science and Nonduality Conference, October 2019, with Dr. Roger Walsh, John Dupuy, and Douglas Prater.

“Healing the broken glass of reality.”

Note: This podcast was recorded live and includes, at times, some extraneous noises in the background. Please excuse them -- we felt the conversation was very valuable and well worth sharing with our audience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1

• Introducing Thomas Hübl (01:03)
• By definition, awakenings are not nondual if people haven’t dealt with their shadow: nondual needs to be the talk and the walk (3:03)
• The body is a sophisticated energy pipe system; mystics are like plumbers or electricians who free up the pipes (05:50)
• On stabilizing, generalizing, integrating insights: state practices versus process awareness (07:10)
• Tibetan Buddhism’s three developmental maps: 1) turning towards contemplative practice, 2) the stabilization of realized states, 3) ongoing purification (08:56) 
• We need to commit to a spiritual path, to cleaning up, and make space to clear things or the same difficulties will repeat again and again (10:12)
• Trauma is the collapse of time/space (11:46)
• Making divine awakening your highest priority is what constitutes a serious practitioner (14:06) 
• All serious shadow and trauma work is relational (15:24) 
• How can we stay committed to the path? Community, an externalization of our intention (18:22)
• Two challenges: We are tempted to abandon our practice both when it gets very dark—and when life gets very good (20:35) 
• Consciousness is catching: the way to develop desired qualities is to hang out with people who embody the qualities we want (22:14)
• Our cultural relationship to hierarchy: we’ve thrown it out, but there are hierarchies of development, maturity, wisdom, insight, and compassion that should be honored
• What are the most valuable ways to engage with what is inside us and integrate what we discover? (25:18) 
• Paying attention to congruence and coherence in our mental, physical, and emotional expression (28:21)
• Collective trauma: all of us have been born into a traumatized world (29:10) 
• Healing the broken reality: every trauma healing needs to result in an ethical upgrade; we have to become better people...

Ep. 38 (Part 2 of 3) | Lucid dreaming expert, author, “curiouist,” and integralist Andrew Holecek explains how lucid dreaming opens the door to a greatly expanded understanding of our minds, our perception of reality, and human potential altogether. If we consciously explore our night lives practicing dream yoga, we can learn how to discard our habits, purify our karma, and discover beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are co-creators of our experience. What we do in dream yoga is not limited to nighttime action; it weaves back into our daytime lives, and ultimately our experience of dying.

Andrew describes how dreams are a powerful way to discover emptiness and openness, and fall into reality—like falling into love—our primordial contraction cast away. Besides being a life-changing discourse on the incredible potential of dream yoga, Andrew Holecek’s cheerful, well-informed, easy way of talking and teaching about lucid dreaming—relating it also to the wisdom traditions, our sense of identity, and human evolution—makes this a real pleasure to listen to. Recorded on April 13, 2022.

“Lucid dreaming is metacognitive dreaming: the next iteration of human evolution.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2

• How can one begin? First, realize the potentiality of lucid dreaming and become an oneironaut (01:40)
• The importance of intentionality, and, installing pop-ups in your unconscious mind (04:19)
• Meditation practice is a super technique to help attain lucidity at night (and in the daytime) (07:18)
• How you can purify your karma and habits in your dreams (09:51)
• Transforming the mother of all our habits: reification (12:40)
• Purifying habits by night purifies habits by day (14:44)
• His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teaching on dream yoga (19:09)
• Dream yoga is a powerful way to discover emptiness, emptiness = openness = love; meditation habituates us to openness, and when falling into reality, the primordial contraction is removed (22:00)
• How the self sense comes undone when we fall asleep, a concordant experience with dying (26:11)
• Andrew leads a short (game changing) dream yoga practice: 3-fold impurity—and, where is the dreamer? (29:55)

Resources & References - Part 2

• Andrew Holecek, Dream Yoga: Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep*
• Andrew Holecek, The Lucid Dreaming Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering Your Dream Life*
• Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life*
• His Holiness the 17th Karmapa website, His Holiness the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje: A Biography*

Ep. 63 (Part 1 of 2) | Lynn Fuentes, Ph.D., author of The Koan of Chronic Illness and teacher of a series of courses on managing chronic illness, shines a bright light of understanding on chronic illness with all of its far-reaching ramifications in this very moving and important conversation. Lynn not only illuminates what chronic illness involves physically, emotionally, and relationally, but delves also into the existential questions it engenders: How should we live? How can we love each other? How can we embrace our suffering and allow it to be our path to greater connection with spirit? Lynn speaks from personal experience, having spent many years caring for a family member with a debilitating illness, and explains how she used the Integral Map in her own struggle to help make sense of the huge, all-consuming project that inevitably follows a diagnosis. Now she teaches others what she has learned about coping with the overwhelming logistics, healing the trauma, and also about transforming illness into a spiritual practice.

This conversation really pertains to all of us, whether we are very ill or not, as aging towards death is something we all face. Can we learn to prepare ourselves? Can we reflect deeply on what is truly meaningful and important about life itself and live accordingly? Can we open to the wholeness of life, the pain and the bliss, the suffering that our cultural narrative would just as soon ignore? Chronic illness is a heartrending subject, but Lynn’s warm, wise, skillful, Integral approach allows us to see it in an expanded way, more profound, more transformative, than we may have seen it before. Recorded December 15, 2022.

“We cannot separate suffering from life, they are intimately interconnected. Illness really shows us that.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Lynn Fuentes, founder of Transformation Teaching and author of The Koan of Chronic Illness: An Integral Approach (01:01)
• How Lynn came to focus on chronic illness—because of her son (01:52)
• Why say the “koan” of chronic illness? And the spiritually oriented questions that come up when facing such an illness, like “why me?” “Why my son?” (05:24)
• How to handle this as a parent and making lemonade from lemons (08:40)
• Genji-kōans arise out of life itself and the difference between knowledge questions and wisdom questions (11:02)
• The all-consuming challenge of chronic illness: getting an illness is both a trauma and a HUGE project, like taking several college causes when all you should be doing is resting (15:30)
• Be kind to yourself: this is not easy (20:22)
• Using Integral Theory’s four-quadrant model really helps get a handle on this (20:40)
• You need a village (22:52)
• The medical system needs to be completely revamped (24:03)
• Physicians’ burnout and moral injury (26:14)
• Support groups can be even more effective than the doctors (28:51)
• Chronic illness is not like acute illness: doctors want to be successful and patients feel guilty seeing their doctors when they’re not getting better (29:50)
• The heartless attitude that it’s all in your head (30:44) 
• A longstanding UK study’s medical recommendations for exercise and cognitive behavioral therapy were just plain

Ep. 105 (Part 2 of 2) | Shachar Erez, longtime spiritual practitioner and integrally informed therapist in Israel, opens his heart, sharing his pain and overwhelming grief since the outbreak of war with Hamas and revealing another dimension of what’s going on than what we see in the news. It is a profound experience listening to a sensitive, compassionate person openly, honestly, courageously sharing what it feels like to be living with his family under threat of extreme violence, struggling to accept humanity as it is, working to help survivors reframe trauma to prevent PTSD, all amidst utter uncertainty as to the future of Israel and its people. Universal questions are raised: How to remain human in wartime? How is an ethical, spiritual, peaceful person to cope? Is there any hope for peace between Palestine and Israel? And, we are all broken—how do we accept the brokenness and continue to function?

The sustaining power of an integral-spiritual practice is clear—it is practice (intense workouts and meditation especially) that gets Shachar through and able to muster up the energy to help others, which in turn is so helpful to him. Shachar marvels at how sitting in the therapist’s chair allows him to embrace all that he hears—all the realities, all the horrors—when if he heard it on the news, he couldn’t take it. As a therapist, Shachar is very much thinking ahead to the near unimaginable challenge of helping all the people who are hurt by this war, in Gaza and in Israel, after the fighting stops. “How do you find a shrink for 12 million people?” he asks, adding, “This should be an awakening all over the Western world—people should not be living in fear like this in 2023.” Recorded November 1, 2023. 

“People should not be living in fear like this in 2023.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• What is Israel to do in this situation? (02:04)
• Israel is inevitably dropping to lower developmental stages—to hope there would be no vengeance is naive (03:40)
• How to understand a level of motivation where you sacrifice your own people? (06:49)
• There’s no more left wing in Israel—what’s the future of this place? (07:49)
• Why Shachar left progressive Berkeley and returned to Israel (10:53)
• Can peace happen? The Palestinians have been taught to hate, but John reminds us how the U.S. and Germany, the U.S. and Japan, were reconciled very quickly after WWII (13:30)
• The most important practice now: high intensity workouts (17:45)
• If numb, do something small to regain functionality and motivation (18:21)
• Other helpful practices: talking to people, meditation, volunteering & helping others (19:41)
• In trauma, you always feel like you are alone, but Israelis are good at coming together socially if not politically (21:25)
• In the midst of trauma and hatred, human kindness is healing (22:43)
• What can we who are not near the battle do to help? Stay open to the suffering, to the questions, and avoid dogmatic certainty (23:27)
• What would be the most humane response? Holding compassion but holding strength (26:35)
• This should be an awakening all over the Western world – there’s something that needs to be realigned: people should not be living in fear like this in 2023 (27:31)
• What is the right response ethically, practically?...

Ep. 12 (Part 1 of 2) | Dan Millman, a man who has devoted his life to mastery—in sports and in the arena of life itself—and author of the book that opened doors for so many, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, published in the 80s, talks about inspiration, talent, discipline, mastery, ordinary life, and his own path, practices, teachers, and new book, Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit: The True Story of My Spiritual Quest. Humorous and humble, Dan embodies the peaceful warrior way, centering his life around service, sharing his wisdom, and living the question, “What needs doing right now?” Recorded on October 20, 2021.

Dan Millman has shown us how to live with both a peaceful heart and a warrior’s spirit for forty years. His new book Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit shares his reflections on the extraordinary experiences that shaped his evolution from youthful dreamer to spiritual teacher. Dan’s first book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, was a bestseller and adapted into a feature film. Dan is a former world trampoline champion, Stanford University gymnastics coach, martial arts instructor, and Oberlin college professor. His 18 books are published in 29 languages. Dan has traveled widely, teaching in over thirty countries. To learn more about his books, events, online courses, and free life-purpose calculator, visit www.PeacefulWarrior.com.

“There are no ordinary moments.”

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1

• The deepest source of Dan’s inspiration (05:32) 
• How do we develop talent? In sports—and in life (06:46)
• The heart of Dan’s motivation: What’s the bigger picture? Asking “What do I do?” instead of “Who am I?” (11:25)
• The importance of gaining self-knowledge (Know thyself): otherwise we make the right choice for the wrong person! (12:51)
• On discipline, the Marshmallow Experiment, and using failure as a stepping stone (15:15) 
• The learning curve of mastering...anything (18:18)
• There are no ordinary moments: practice everything (24:21)
• How self-mastery leads to a path of service (27:37) 
• Practicing happiness (33:05)
• Helping others, helping ourselves: connecting heaven and earth (36:08)

Resources & References - Part 1

• Dan Millman, Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit*
• Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior*
• PeacefulWarrior.com
• Dan Millman, The Hidden School*
• Dan Millman, No Ordinary Moments*
• The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment on delayed gratification
• Picasso, “It took me...a lifetime to paint like a child.”
• Roger Walsh’s essay,

Ep. 35 (Part 2 of 2) | Frederik Coene, a European Union diplomat stationed in Kyiv and world authority on Russia and Eastern Europe, describes the current situation in Ukraine—"a cocktail of emotions"—and outlines what it would take for us to find a true solution to the conflict and create sustainable peace. Frederik brings the multiple perspectives of Integral theory to bear: he discusses how developmental stages play into the ways Russians and Ukrainians are thinking, acting, and reacting, and emphasizes the need to get beyond black and white thinking, foster compassion, and take responsibility for our thoughts and our actions. How do we cultivate the willingness to understand each other, to have a dialogue? Because as Frederik says, “the war may be fought on the battlefield, but peace is only going to come through dialogue.”

The fruits of Frederik’s own personal transformative practice and understanding of the Enneagram and Spiral Dynamics flow into his work as a diplomat/bureaucrat, pointing the way towards change. Besides effectively deepening our understanding of what’s going on in Ukraine and Russia now, this talk is a real inspiration for those interested in weaving together personal growth, professional responsibility, and dedication to service. A humble, open, and wise transmission. Recorded on June 29, 2022.

“If we want to find a true solution, sustainable and lasting peace…we can no longer be guided by our heads alone. We have to include the heart.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2

• How the Enneagram fosters self-transformation, awareness of your own reactivity, and gets you out of black and white thinking (01:02)
• If we are skilled at taking multiple perspectives into account, how do we narrow it down and make a good judgment? (05:50)
• Practical wisdom: how do we skillfully and benevolently respond in the world? (07:14)
• And how this works in Ukraine now; when to take responsibility for actions and break the rules (09:01)
• Bureaucracy and its purpose; and the purpose of the Enneagram (12:28)
• Back to the situation in Ukraine now: a cocktail of emotions (16:20)
• Frederik’s personal self-transformation in the last 7 years with Ukraine as a catalyst (24:51)
• We need to merge head and heart if we want to find a sustainable peace (27:16)
• How do we cultivate the willingness to understand each other, to have a dialogue? (29:47) 
• Roger reads aloud excerpts from Frederik’s Facebook postings addressed to Russians and to Ukrainians (32:59)
• The deep wisdom questions: what am I called to do? How can I make myself a more effective instrument of service? (36:10)

Resources & References - Part 2

• Frederik Coene, The Caucasus - An Introduction*
• Frederik Coene, Euro-Atlantic Discourse in Georgia*
• YouTube 1420, live street interviews

Ep. 65 | Rev. Dr. Michael Clarke, principal of the Anglican seminary Codrington College in Barbados, beautifully articulates how embodied spirituality can change us and the importance of personal encounters with living Spirit to further us along our evolutionary path. He enlightens us as to the shortcomings of the Church and religion as it is largely practiced in the West in a way many of us may not have heard before, pointing out that the Church fails to take into account that the magnitude of our understanding of divine experience is ever expanding, in parallel with Ken Wilber’s Integral teaching on the ever expanding nature of consciousness, and mentioning that Jesus’ experience as divine man was not intended to be the end all religious experience for all time. As Michael says, “We need to understand the Oneness—we’ve done religion from the duality perspective, from a separatist perspective…missing the whole point!”

Michael is passionate about creating opportunities for people to have personal encounters with living Spirit since having his own earth-shattering experience with the divine. He tells us that when spirituality comes into play, it offers a step upward, a higher place to stand to view the world that allows for Oneness, and describes the separation inherent in our world of duality today as a “wonderful avenue towards unification, appreciation, and understanding.” So, “How do you lift up this thing called spirituality and cause it to be a central part of religious response? Can the Church grow with what needs to happen?” Michael imbues this conversation with a bright, shining light of deep spiritual understanding and invites us all to be open to the “call to be more.” Recorded September 6, 2021.

“This human experience causes us to fall asleep… thus the journey of awakening.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps

• How John met Michael Clarke at an Integral Christianity conference (01:25)
• Michael’s journey from cradle Anglican to hearing the call to ministry and becoming an ordained priest in 1984 (04:33)
• Speaking from the perspective of a Black priest rather than an Anglican priest for the first time (05:55)
• Michael’s spiritual turning point experience and consciousness shift (08:19)
• Climbing up the Jesus experience as a platform to go higher didn’t end up happening; the Jesus experience was made out to be the highest possible experience (09:16)
• Michael’s spiritual experience in more detail: finding himself on the floor of the Church and recognizing that there is another dimension of religious experience outside of dogma (10:40)
• Discovering a path parallel to the theoretical and philosophical with access to divine authority and power—direct experience of the living spirit—has been pushed aside, especially in the West, to focus on the objective (14:51)
• Our world (and the Church) tends to seek control, but no one can control the direct divine experience of an individual (18:00)
• How do you lift up this thing called spirituality and cause it to be the core of religious response? (19:38)
• Looking for a system that would transcend and include Michael’s experience—practices to induce religious response (21:12)
• Opening to the “more,” the luminous, capturing a sense that everything is expanding (27:13) 
• Understanding that divine experience is an evolutionary process, forever...

Ep. 140 (Part 1 of 2) | Author, psychiatrist, professor, and Deep Transformation podcast co-host Roger Walsh was drawn to explore the remarkable world of shamanism—a tradition of opening to altered states, intuition, and profound insights and wisdom—when he found it was the one great world tradition he didn’t understand. He was intrigued by Romanian scholar Mircea Eliade’s description of the core feature of a shaman being “ecstatic flight,” and recognizing the lack of any easy to understand book on the subject, Roger was inspired to pursue this subject in depth and write the book himself! In his book and in this conversation, Roger provides us with a brilliant, big picture perspective, pointing out that at the heart of shamanism (and every great world tradition) are psychospiritual technologies—actual practices—that lead us to the doorway of the Great Mystery, and that service is the culmination of each tradition, both as a means to and an expression of one’s realization.

The dialogue is warm, open, and personal—Roger shares his experience of realizing the vastness of the inner world for the first time (“I felt like I’d lived my entire life on the top six inches of a wave on top of an ocean I didn’t even know existed!”), his realization that “as a culture, we are sleepwalking through life, unaware of the resources, capacities and gifts we bear within us,” and his coming to terms with the Great Mystery. John, too, shares his experiences within the Native American spiritual tradition: the power of the vision quest, prayer, drumming in ceremony, death medicine, and enduring trials in service to one’s people. Roger’s wonderful curiosity, integrity, graciousness, and keen intellect are all in evidence as he discusses the indeterminacy of spirit, mediumship, journeying, and death, and as he marvels at the bottomless, boundless mystery that both surrounds us and is us. Recorded June 27, 2024.

“Not only does the Great Mystery surround us, but we are Mystery—our own being is Mystery.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• The ethos of service at the heart of shamanism (00:55)
• Service is the culmination of shamanism—and every world tradition—both as a means to and an expression of one’s realization (02:20)
• Opening to the Great Mystery: we really don’t know what is going on (05:06)
• Castaneda’s 4 challenges to becoming a person of knowledge, particularly the challenge of clarity (09:08)
• Transconceptual intuition and Ken Wilber’s vision-logic (12:11)
• What about death? (16:21)
• Shamans were our first general practitioner, spiritual guide, tribal counselor, psychopomp, all rolled into one (18:04)
• How did humans discover this tradition? (20:04)
• What is a spirit? A construct of the psyche? An independent intelligence? (21:41)
• The powerful effects of mediumship throughout human history (24:07)
• The spiritual practice of journeying (27:55)
• Bottom line: shamans tap into the depths of the psyche and take us to the doorway of Mystery, leaving us there with remarkable potentials and possibilities (29:49)

Resources & References – Part 2

• Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, The Power of...

Ep. 62 (Part 2 of 2) | Educator, author, philosopher, and futurist Zachary Stein gives a startling account of the effects the digital age already has on education and where this is headed. Think AI tutors and students talking in 3D with Socrates. Zak sees education in a deeply philosophical sense as fundamental to the sustainability of our civilization, with implications for each component of the metacrisis. Who will be driving the technology stack that actually leads to a viable civilization? Can we maintain our psychological sovereignty in a sea of digital propaganda and know the truth?

Zak describes the metacrisis as a gestalt shift that allows us to orient toward the whole in an intuitive way and how this can give us traction in finding solutions. He finds hope for our future in the untapped potential of our collective human family and especially in the untapped potential of our youth, given the opportunity to make their lives meaningful and connected, working together to resolve the pressing challenges of our time. If you have a slightly outdated perception of the present, this impactful, far-reaching conversation may rock it squarely to the edge of present and future. Recorded November 30, 2022.

“A crisis at the root of the way we make choices about civilization itself—the metacrisis is a crisis of the mind.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• How we ourselves are weaponized to spread propaganda (01:52)
• Meditation as an antidote: coming back to our own fundamental present moment experience (02:58)
• Algorithmic radicalization and how to stop the limbic hijacking that happens via the screen (04:20)
• The future of education: AI tutoring, virtual reality, and talking with Socrates (07:50)
• For the first time a generation could be raised by a non-human entity, creating a trans-human generation and fundamentally changing the dynamic of what a human is (12:31)
• The “return of the human” and the bicycle analogy (16:51)
• Who will be driving the technology stack that actually leads to a viable democracy in America and a viable civilization altogether? (19:06)
• Education broadly defined is social autopoiesis—the way the social system identifies, reproduces, evolves (21:06)
• Self-conscious evolution occurs through human education; our capacity for education makes us unique as a species (23:55)
• The future of education involves the end of schools and learning to socialize doing collaborative work (26:50)
• The adolescent mental health crisis: everyone senses schools are irrelevant (28:04)
• Making the lives of adolescents meaningful and reviving the guild structure (30:30)
• How do we foster virtue and maturity, and intelligence rather than only intelligence? (32:40)
• The de-spiritualization of society and the need to reintroduce religious meaning making (35:00)
• What gives Zachary hope: how much we underestimate human potential, and all the untapped collective intelligence that could come out of a cooperative approach vs a competitive one (39:31)

Resources & References – Part 2

• Consilience Project propaganda series...

Ep. 163 (Part 2 of 2) | In the sixth dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali tells us that whereas pure consciousness is already perfect and does not change or grow, individual consciousness is an impressionable organism—alive, changing, moving, developing. Hameed explains that because the soul is impressionable, the impacts of experience are imprinted upon it, shaping our very consciousness. Ego structures form from repeated impressions, and although they are necessary for survival and to function in a relational world, these structures make it difficult to experience the living presence of our true nature. We experience the ego self instead, mistaking our self-image for what we truly are. When we loosen our conditioning, with help from practices like inquiry and bodywork, our soul becomes free of its imprint and our true potential arises naturally, along with greater compassion and other qualities of the soul. 

Simply and clearly, Hameed brings us to a deeper understanding of our soul, elucidating what holds us to our limited self-identity and describing what we have to look forward to as the myriad imprints hammered into us by experience become diaphanous, and new impressions no longer make indelible imprints. Hameed also delves into the different ways various traditions talk about the soul, the difference between ordinary knowledge and “knowing,” or gnosis, and tells us that sudden enlightenment and gradual enlightenment are an artificial dichotomy, sharing a story of a sudden enlightenment experience of his own. Once again, Hameed transmits an extraordinary amount of wisdom in a relatively short time, and we emerge brighter, hopeful, and inspired as to our boundless spiritual potential. Recorded November 14, 2024.

“When the soul becomes free of its original imprint, it becomes open to its inner potential – and inner potential is mostly spiritual potential.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Relaxing the tension in the soul and body is important: working with body armor (00:49)
• Mature impressionability: when the soul is more free, impacts don’t leave lasting imprints (03:16)
• When the soul becomes free of its original imprint, it opens to its inner potential (08:34)
• The enlightenment drive and our spiritual potential (11:41)
• Psychology and spirituality are not separate in our consciousness (13:51)
• The different ways different traditions and psychology talk about the soul (15:43)
• Unique particularity becomes very important in Zen: a flower is a flower (20:43)
• Gnosis: I know myself without reflection, without memory; I know what I am (23:13)
• Nonconceptual and transconceptual knowing (25:24)
• Sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation are an artificial dichotomy (28:21)
• What does gradual enlightenment mean? (30:51)
• Hameed relates an experience of “sudden enlightenment” (31:21)
• How the evolution of the universe relates to awakened consciousness (33:40)
• Roger’s acknowledgment of this conversation as uniquely impactful (36:48)

Resources & References

• A. H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), founder...

Ep. 165 (Part 2 of 2) | Tami Simon, founder of the highly regarded multimedia publishing company Sounds True, covers a lot of inspiring ground in this heartening, lively, candid conversation. She tells the extraordinary story of how she came to devote herself to disseminating spiritual wisdom; about finding the edges and growing into them on her own path of awakening; the spiritual teachers she has encountered whose teachings have affected her the most; the wholeness of spiritual vision and psychological health; and discovering that, like all of us, spiritual leaders can be both luminous and in need of healing at the same time. Tami is an ardent torchbearer for the conscious business movement, explaining that business can be the way we give our gifts—that the endeavors of an inspired entrepreneur can be expressions of love and provide an incredible way of connecting with other people.

What is so striking throughout is the depth of Tami’s clarity about what matters in life and her unwavering commitment to acting with integrity. Tami has a remarkable ability to translate her spiritual insights and principles into action—as co-host Roger Walsh points out, she is a beautiful example of a karma yogic life, where being of service is the fuel, the inspiration, and the content of her life, as she continuously works towards furthering both her own spiritual awakening and the awakening of all. Tami offers a lovely, poetic rendering of the effects of living a true and meaningful life: “The litmus test is always somebody’s wake, the ripples of their life, how they’ve impacted others . . . the beauty, love, and justice that live in the wake of a person.” A genuinely engaging, illuminating, memorable conversation. Recorded October 17, 2024.

“What I feel I owe people is the truth.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• What are some of the people and ideas that really stand out to Tami? (01:14)
• Every podcast guest has given a gift (02:01)
• Learning somatic practices from Reggie Ray (03:30)
• Meeting Adyashanti, the ‘goodest’ human Tami ever met (04:31)
• A. H. Almaas’ Diamond Approach: the possibilities for expanding knowledge in the spiritual universe (06:10)
• Coming into the notion of original voice with Clarissa Pinkola Estes; Caroline Myss’ illumination of shadow work (06:45)
• Discovering that spiritual teachers can be luminous and also have parts that are harmful and need healing (09:52)
• How spiritual vision & psychological health seamlessly come together in the Diamond Approach (13:38)
• Psychotherapist Bruce Tift’s idea that we alternate between spiritual vision and the developmental work of psychology (16:00)
• The litmus test is what lives in the wake of a person (17:13)
• Tami’s practice: asking what is needed now, moment by moment (19:26)
• Paying attention to what is being said to us by others and our environment (23:58)
• The Integral movement: we benefit from having it in our consciousness (25:43)
• The Internal Family Systems (IFS) movement: the notion of being self-led in any given moment: compassionate, courageous, curious, calm (27:14)
• Conscious business: the movement for business to be a crucible for personal growth (29:05) 
• What were the darkest times for Sounds True?...

Ep. 113 (Part 2 of 2) | Bruce Alderman, poet, mystic, and spiritual explorer, is also an integral scholar and pioneer of the emerging field of metatheory, looking at how to put our disparate fields of information—spiritual, psychological, philosophical, environmental, scientific—together and integrate them into a useful whole. Here Bruce tells the tale of how he was drawn into an experiential exploration of different worldviews, how he came to find the value in navigating different spiritual traditions, and how he discovered how to integrate mystical experiences, Asian spiritual teachings, and Western education, science, and psychology. Bruce’s unique understanding of interreligious relationships and their potential for meeting current challenges informs his call to the global community of spiritual practitioners to dialogue, critique, deeply listen, and reap the benefits of reflecting back to the other a view that takes them deeper in their understanding of their own position. Bruce also shares a brilliant vision of leadership training practices for developing the skills leaders will need to navigate the unfolding global crises of our time. This program will take form in the upcoming Blue Sky Leaders program at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Bruce is beautifully eloquent on many levels, sharing insights on intensifying our intimate experience of Being, trusting our dialogue with Being to bear fruit, and finding coherence while holding multiple paths. Bruce describes his turn towards scholarship and academia as “dancing on the subtle plane,” and thinking as one spiritual practice among many—a practice of union. There are so many gems of wisdom here, relayed in Bruce’s gently humorous, humble, and erudite manner. Bruce also inspires on how each of us can become a change agent simply by being integrous with who we are. Recorded December 6, 2023.

“We can each become change agents just by being integrous with who we are.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• The wild knot as symbol for a human being or culture: we are threads of a relationship that don’t have a final terminus (00:53)
• The challenges of our time and the need for entangled deep listening (01:59)
• A leadership training program that includes ongoing contemplative inquiry & practice, and also looks at cultural, political, ecological & spiritual dynamics and new cosmologies (02:26)
• Hyperobjects: you can’t see climate change, economic collapse, or evolution from a local point of view—it demands collective vision to perceive and apprehend it (04:13) 
• Bruce’s vision for leadership development and the Blue Sky Leaders program empower people to serve in the great issues of our time (06:13)
• The bodhisattva ideal is both empowering and self-canceling (10:07)
• The metaphor of light, salt, and leaven for anyone wanting to be a change agent and serve the flourishing of life (13:23)
• Krishnamurti’s idea of “living in learning” and a program that is “deliberately developmental” (16:42)
• What are the specific practices essential for cultivating leaders to navigate the crises that are unfolding? (22:00)
• We evolved to be optimally functional on a much smaller level—without proper grounding, facing world problems can cause existential crisis (26:13) 
• Holding a loving center, living and learning together...

Ep. 27 (Part 1 of 2) | David Loy, Zen teacher, scholar, and prolific author, reveals his acute understanding of the crises we face today, the psychology at the root of the problems, and how we can make our way forward in this in-depth discussion. He has adopted the term ecodharma to focus attention on the challenge Buddhism faces now: integrating personal transformation with global activism and social transformation. As David points out, the focus needs to be on this world, with transcendence being a metaphorical understanding but not an excuse to abandon the problems we and our planet face today.

Besides gaining great depth of knowledge from being a scholar and student of koans, David’s insights come from a plethora of nondual experiences, which led David on a path of eco-action. Ecodharma asks: How does Buddhism need to change? How much is dwelling in emptiness becoming problematical in these challenging times? What’s best for the Earth? Everyone says practice, practice, practice…when is the performance? Is evolutionary pressure going to create a new way of living sustainably? Recorded February 22, 2020.

“When your sense of separation dissipates, it becomes not what’s in it for me, but what can I do to help make this a better world for everybody?”

Note: This podcast was recorded live and includes, at times, some extraneous noises in the background. Please excuse them -- we felt the conversation was very valuable and well worth sharing with our audience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1

• Social activism, Zen practice, philosophy, koan study: how it all started (03:52)
• How does David’s Zen practice inform his activism? It was the experiences of nondual reality (05:48)
• The emergence of compassion: when your sense of separation dissipates, it becomes not what’s in it for me, but what can I do to help make this a better world for everybody (09:14)
• The cold civil war in the U.S. and the need to find a way to talk with each other and understand conflicting points of view (12:03)
• Our fundamental problem is that we don’t feel real, because the separate self is a construct, inherently insecure, inherently uncomfortable, and we experience this as a sense of fundamental lack (14:03)
• The psychological and sociological implications of this sense of lack and how society is constructed to take advantage of it: the contemporary world religion is consumerism (17:31)
• The positive and negative sides of individualism (22:23)
• The heart of the bodhisattva path: personal transformation and social transformation (24:57)
• The challenge of integrating nondual experiences (27:31)
• 3 elements of the Pali Canon’s Motivation for Awakening (28:31)
• Dukkha (suffering) is structural not just individual (30:09)
• Awakenings: transcendent, imminent, and the decline of Axial religions that devalue this world (36:26) 
• The problem with mindfulness and the 3 poisons: greed, ill will, delusion (40:51)

Resources & References - Part 1

• David Loy, EcoDharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological...

Ep. 76 (Part 2 of 2) | Enneagram expert, teacher, master facilitator, and transformational coach Leslie Hershberger leads us into the world of the Enneagram, not typology point by point—here Leslie paints a broader, deeper picture of the Enneagram and its uses as a psycho-spiritual tool than is commonly understood. Leslie explains how the Enneagram provides the psychological foundation for each individual to navigate their inner world more skillfully. A wealth of knowledge comes with recognizing the center you orient from—head, heart, or body—and your type’s tendencies, freeing up energy within us to move out of negative patterns into virtuous ones. With the insights the Enneagram provides, we can develop practices tailored to our specific personality structure that help with everyday challenges and vicissitudes, with being more present in our relationships, and with opening to spiritual presence.

Listening to Leslie, one feels the energy of rising awareness as her anecdotes about various different Enneagram types’ ways of relating to themselves, others, and the world ring decisively true, matching our own experience. Leslie’s passion for guiding people who are ready to make “the inward turn” in using the Enneagram as a map is clearly palpable. And though she is a longtime contemplative, Leslie is all about boots-on-the-ground action: meeting people where they are at, providing support and guidance, and reflecting back to all whom she encounters a truly awe-inspiring, Enneagram-informed, and integral understanding. Recorded January 9, 2023.

Please enjoy a 20-minute guided meditation, led by Leslie, at the end of part 2 of this podcast. Leslie originally led this meditation for Roger, John, and the Deep Transformation team right before the podcast was recorded, so they could experience her Enneagram-informed techniques that help us ground, center, and connect with our inner being, somatically and emotionally.

“The Enneagram is a vehicle for spiritual presence—for spiritual experience.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Truth decay: when insights decay into dogma, practices devolve into ritual (01:34)
• Leslie’s disappointment with the dilution of the value of the Enneagram in popular culture and the common tendency to over identify with one’s type (05:39)
• Building in practices for making the inward turn when our type gets triggered (07:34)
• How everyone interprets the Enneagram according to their stage of development: language matters (09:58)
• How knowledge of the 3 centers (head, heart, body) enables us to understand different perspectives and be more present with others (13:23)
• Recommended books for people new to the Enneagram: The Complete Enneagram by Dr. Beatrice Chestnut, The Essential Enneagram by Dr. David Daniels, and more (see resources below) (16:39)
• Is there any research on the Enneagram? (18:06)
• Looking at the Enneagram from the centers perspective is a good portal of entry, and the differences between heart, head, and body types (19:23)
• Back to research: more research could refine the value of the Enneagram (25:00)
• Working with your core vice within a contemplative practice is when things really start to cook (33:48)
• How does your type change over time with an ongoing contemplative practice? The challenge of embodying a healthy type structure...

Ep. 54 (Part 1 of 3) | A frank, hard-hitting conversation with TV producer David Riordan about the dangers democracy faces in this country, the fact that we are in a state of transition whether we like it or not, and the power of shifting our narratives to create change and a sustainable future. David has long been fascinated by the power of story, and has set up Vital Signs of Democracy, a platform that tracks and analyzes the narratives told and reported in the U.S. today—narratives that are foundational to our culture, our culture wars, our politics, and our future. 

Is there hope for American democracy? The good news is that studies show 65-70% of the population actually agree on and support the core principles of democracy—so if we could shift our narrative to reflect the majority view, we might be okay. The other news is that neither democrats or republicans, MAGA conservatives or progressives, have stepped up to represent this majority. David explains that we urgently need an alternative narrative from what we have to move forward—and we all need to ask what kind of country we want America to be. Recorded November 16, 2022 (on the heels of the 2022 midterm elections).

“If you don’t like the story that’s driving you, you can change it.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing David Riordan, Integral documentarian & storyteller (01:05)
• David Riordan, Story Studio, and discovering the power of stories (02:22)
• Asking, “What are the stories we are telling about the now and the future?” (06:02) 
• The surfacing of the “democracy story” and taking the independent political perspective (07:07)
• From conventional up to postconventional developmental stages, our stories usually aren’t even examined (09:54)
• Our stories are what drive us, and we are usually driven by a sense of uncomfortableness (11:34)
• Taking our power back: if we don’t like the story that’s driving us, we can change it (13:09)
• How does David identify the stories? (14:10)
• How the news is reported is a focal point for identifying cultural stories (15:25)
• Did the news used to honor the truth? (16:20)
• How Dan Rather was set up to report a false story (18:54)
• Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN: each tell a different story (20:01) 
• Looking for an ethical higher ground or synthesis of the progressive narrative and the MAGA conservative narrative (23:01)
• How each developmental stage of the Integral map has a different narrative (25:27)
• MAGA: Who are we making America great for? (26:18)
• The old stories are falling away and new stories have yet to stabilize: the very definition of transition (27:45)
• The polarization story in the polls seems hopeless – where is the hope? 65-70% of Americans are in general agreement about the principles of democracy this country needs to represent (28:31)
• There is agreement about the principles of democracy in this country but neither party is addressing the majority view (33:03)
• The 65-70% needs to exercise itself and get our political structures to support and reflect their preferences (36:48)
• What are the characteristics of healthy,...

Ep. 9 (Part 1 of 3) | Cosmological explorer Chris Bache tells what he discovered on his extraordinary journey, doing 73 high-dose LSD sessions over a period of twenty years. Motivated by a passion to find out more about the universe, Chris became intimate with the ocean of suffering in our collective psyche, the death/rebirth cycle, the preciousness of individuality, integrating consciousness at very high levels of energy, and the future of humanity. Chris explains a universal intelligence met him every step of the way. A modern-day Odysseus, who has explored realms far beyond our normal perceptions of reality, Chris’ presence is profoundly compassionate, grounded in a uniquely deep trust in the love and intelligence of the universe. Recorded on October 25, 2021.

Chris Bache, Ph.D. is professor emeritus in the department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University where he taught for 33 years. He is also adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Emeritus Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and on the Advisory Board of Grof Legacy Training. Chris’ passion has been the study of the philosophical implications of non ordinary states of consciousness, especially psychedelic states. An award-winning teacher and international speaker, Chris has written four books: Lifecycles, a study of reincarnation in light of contemporary consciousness research; Dark Night, Early Dawn, a pioneering work in psychedelic philosophy and collective consciousness; The Living Classroom, an exploration of collective fields of consciousness in teaching; and LSD and the Mind of the Universe, the story of his 20-year journey with LSD.

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1

• How WEIRD cultures looked at reality through a monophasic lens clear up till the 1960s—only taking waking reality seriously—whereas other cultures have a polyphasic perception that includes induced altered states, from dreams, meditation, plant medicine, etc. (01:39)
• Psychedelics, a most potent way to induce altered states with profound spiritual applications, and introducing Chris Bache, cosmological explorer (04:42)
• What motivated Chris to begin his quest? The passion to understand our universe and not only the personal unconscious but the collective unconscious (11:19)
• 20-year journey following Stan Grof’s protocol, 73 high dose LSD sessions (13:21) 
• The model of individual awakening and accelerating personal development led to a much broader, collective field of healing and transformation (14:16)
• Intimate relationship with the divine said the book (LSD and the MInd of the Universe) needed to come forward now, even though it exposes so much (16:22)
• The value Chris found in the experience of personal and collective suffering: a cycle of suffering, breakthrough, purification, and ecstasy of insight (17:09)
• Consciousness was waiting every step of the way on this journey to bring ecstasy back into time/space consciousness (21:18)
• The ocean of suffering in our collective psyche (23:53)
• From transpersonal to being an instrument for the transformation of collective consciousness (28:37)
• Using psilocybin would be wiser, gentler—less explosive, less shattering (32:42)
• In Chris’ death/rebirth experiences: what actually dies? (34:36)
• Each different substance has a different range in opening us up (37:39)
• The shamanic persona (39:36)
• Every step deeper into the universe is a step into a higher level of energy: stabilizing...

Ep. 112 (Part 1 of 2) | Bruce Alderman, poet, mystic, and spiritual explorer, is also an integral scholar and pioneer of the emerging field of metatheory, looking at how to put our disparate fields of information—spiritual, psychological, philosophical, environmental, scientific—together and integrate them into a useful whole. Here Bruce tells the tale of how he was drawn into an experiential exploration of different worldviews, how he came to find the value in navigating different spiritual traditions, and how he discovered how to integrate mystical experiences, Asian spiritual teachings, and Western education, science, and psychology. Bruce’s unique understanding of interreligious relationships and their potential for meeting current challenges informs his call to the global community of spiritual practitioners to dialogue, critique, deeply listen, and reap the benefits of reflecting back to the other a view that takes them deeper in their understanding of their own position. Bruce also shares a brilliant vision of leadership training practices for developing the skills leaders will need to navigate the unfolding global crises of our time. This program will take form in the upcoming Blue Sky Leaders program at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Bruce is beautifully eloquent on many levels, sharing insights on intensifying our intimate experience of Being, trusting our dialogue with Being to bear fruit, and finding coherence while holding multiple paths. Bruce describes his turn towards scholarship and academia as “dancing on the subtle plane,” and thinking as one spiritual practice among many—a practice of union. There are so many gems of wisdom here, relayed in Bruce’s gently humorous, humble, and erudite manner. Bruce also inspires on how each of us can become a change agent simply by being integrous with who we are. Recorded December 6, 2023.

“We of the global community of spiritual practitioners owe it to each other to dialogue, critique, and deeply listen.“

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing spiritual pioneer, polymath, and master of metatheory, Bruce Alderman (01:38)
• How Bruce was drawn into an experiential exploration of different worldviews (04:06)
• Bruce’s first mystical experiences (07:17)
• Traveling in Asia, studying music & meditation, not wanting to have to choose one tradition to the exclusion of others (08:37)
• How to integrate mystical desert experiences, Asian spiritual teachings, and Western education, science, psychology? (11:16)
• Finding the value in navigating different spiritual traditions and coming face to face with the contradictions between them (14:45)
• Practicing more than one path at once can cause anguish, incoherence, and also has distinct benefits, and how some traditions can hold the one and the many at the same time (19:55)
• As A. H. Almaas also came to, the recognition of co-ultimacy of multiple ultimates (22:20)
• Opening oneself to as much as one can: psyche and existence are self-awakening (23:56) 
• Hungry for the stories and experiences of humankind and all of their engagements with Being (25:59)
• The concept of generative enclosure: that consciousness is embedded in the environment and embodied in the body—our experience of the world is mediated by our own context (29:47)
• Spiritual practice, focusing...

Ep. 108 (Part 1 of 2) | Dr. James Finley, clinical psychologist, trauma specialist, scholar, poet, and author of the powerful memoir, The Healing Path, has an extraordinary breadth and depth of understanding about trauma and the alchemical effects of adding a depth dimension to therapy. Here, he shares about his own experience of trauma and healing, the therapeutic effects of introducing the depth dimension to his clients, the dynamics of anger and forgiveness, the path of longing, and how love gives itself away in the preciousness of each moment, rendering ordinary life sacred. James’ profound understanding of grace is unmistakable, beautiful, riveting—both from personal experience and as a student of Thomas Merton, who introduced him to the wisdom of the mystics at the Trappist monastery, Gethsemani.

Practically everything James says is both a poem and a revelation, so whether you are Christian, Buddhist, or atheist, this conversation offers a therapeutic wisdom and understanding of trauma that goes way beyond the norm, as well as a transmission of infinite love, bottomless mercy. At the end, James laughs at how he is talking: “I can’t believe I’m talking like this…a traumatized kid from Akron, Ohio. It’s not coming from me; it’s flowing through me. All I’m doing is passing on what was passed on to me. So as it catches fire in you, it might pass through you into others.” Recorded August 17, 2023.

“In the momentum of the day’s demands, we feel we are skimming across the surface of the depths of our own lives: we are suffering from depth deprivation.” 

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Dr. James Finley, clinical psychologist specializing in trauma, spiritual therapist, author of The Healing Path & Merton’s Palace of Nowhere (00:58)
• How does James bring the worlds of psychotherapy and spirituality together? (03:32)
• James’ experience of God responding during his traumatic childhood and how Thomas Merton introduced him to the mystics at the Trappist monastery (04:22)
• Teaching high school religion, writing Merton’s Palace of Nowhere about how to find our way to our true self, leading silent contemplative retreats, and becoming a clinical psychologist (07:25)
• Where trauma and the presence of God touch each other: into the broken places, the light shines through (08:54)
• There is healing without forgiveness, but there is no healing without anger (11:21)
• Standing in the clear mindedness of anger, you’re not completely free until you forgive (14:29) 
• Self-hatred and how we perpetuate the violence until we find a safe place to work it through (18:14)
• Finding refuge in zazen, forgiving abuse at home and in the monastery, and how James found his way back into mystical Catholicism and the depth dimension (20:58)
• Where faith comes in to interior healing, where the alchemy happens: being carried along by mercy equals salvation (25:00)
• Getting past the distortions of religiosity: regrounding therapy in the depth dimension, moving back and forth from the hurting place to infinite love and mercy (26:36)
• What shines forth out of love or out of tragedy: being intimately overtaken by the nearness of the unexplainable (30:11)
• When we have just lost everything, we glimpse the infinity of mercy, and a longing is born

Ep. 106 (Part 1 of 2) | Dr. Mamphela Ramphele, global thought leader, author, medical doctor, scholar, anti-apartheid activist, and co-founder of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa has lived her extraordinary life guided by the knowing that every one of us is part of an inextricably linked system, and to live life as an authentic human being means assuming responsibility for oneself, others, and the whole web of life. Here, she connects the dots for us in so many ways, telling the remarkable story of how the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa was born with the realization that accepting a second-class identity was only perpetuating apartheid, internally and externally, and right away, the group became aware they needed to bring forth practical manifestations of this new consciousness. Mamphela has worked to do exactly that—bring the values of expanded consciousness into being—her whole life, first as an anti-apartheid activist and doctor, in bimonthly meetings with Nelson Mandela when he was in prison, writing books on social-economic issues in South Africa, and later, working to manifest the values of compassion, dignity, and social justice on a global level as a managing director of the World Bank, co-president of The Club of Rome, and more.

When asked what hurts, Mamphela describes the terrible conditions in South Africa, which she explains could have been averted if post-apartheid leaders had chosen to act for the wellbeing of all rather than getting enmeshed in party politics. And what gives Mamphela hope? The hope she sees in the eyes of young people (and old), and the transformations already underway in small communities. As she says, “the world has lost its way…it’s all about having more rather than being more,” but Mamphela believes real change will happen in the next couple of decades, when our personal, professional, and political lives become framed by the same value system—the values of ubuntu, the traditional, indigenous wisdom values of Africa, which are not only Africa’s heritage but all of ours. Inspiring and enlightening, this conversation is a transmission from a vibrant elder who fully understands and puts into practice what it means to live an authentic, compassionate life, with courage, humor, integrity, and wisdom. Recorded November 9, 2023.

“The majority of white people [in apartheid South Africa] were petrified of losing their privileges—in the same way we continue with business as usual today, in the face of climate change.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Mamphela Ramphele, physician, scholar, anti-apartheid activist, author, and global thought leader (01:32)
• Growing up in a family of educators with encyclopedias & books all over the place, asking, as a young child, what makes my country so different? (03:42)
• The day the penny dropped: as long as we call ourselves non-whites, we’re perpetuating the rule of the oppressors (06:00)
• First came a sense of power—we can change things—then the purpose: make a world where no one is identified as a “non-something”  (08:52)
• This also liberates white people from their superiority complex, which is a burden (10:51)
• The system itself funded the first meeting of South African students, the founding organization of the Black Consciousness Movement (12:32)
• The evolution of the Black Consciousness Movement: freeing mind, heart & body from...

Ep. 80 (Part 2 of 2) | Connie Zweig, award-winning author, depth psychologist, master shadow guide, and longtime contemplative practitioner asks some good questions—and answers them too, with unusual clarity and deep insight born of long experience and a cutting-edge mind. Why is it that we meet darkness on the spiritual path? What do we banish into the shadow? How do we reclaim what we project onto charismatic leaders? Learning to recognize and resolve the shadow is a powerful practice, and one that is all too often overlooked in a time when psychology is focused on objective approaches, neglecting the fact and force of the unconscious. Cultivating shadow awareness, we can begin to look beyond projections and stereotypes, recognize the risks of black and white thinking, and learn how to reclaim what Carl Jung called the “unlived life.” Connie discusses the psychodynamics between spiritual student and spiritual teacher, and other situations where people have disproportionate power over others, shining a bright light of illumination on the nuances and complexities of these relationships.

This is an intimate look into the challenges of the spiritual path, where we need both psychological practice and spiritual practice to advance our awakening, and a very relevant, timely conversation with shadow currently erupting in our culture in epidemic proportions. Connie’s dedication to helping people find their way through the dark nights we inevitably experience on our spiritual journey comes through strong and clear. Her authenticity, caring, and wisdom is palpable, inspiring us as to how the lights really go on when we start to see the dynamics of our inner world and relationships with more nuance, deeper insight, and shadow awareness. Recorded April 5, 2023.

“When you meet the shadow, it means something else is required of you.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Let’s talk about awakening: it’s not just about meeting the shadow (01:25)
• Connie’s intention is to help people move through and past the inevitable challenges on the path of spiritual growth (03:30)
• Spiritual shadow work: how do we reclaim our projections & gifts that we tend to give away to charismatic leaders? (04:44) 
• How do we uncover what we banished into the shadow? Bringing forth our “unlived life” (06:11)
• Connie’s distress about the state of the field of psychology today: medicalization, the cognitive/behavioral/neuroscience approach, and a complete discounting of the role of the unconscious (09:12)
• Ken Wilber’s work (and the work of A. H. Almaas) provides a bridge for integrating depth psychology and spiritual practice (12:02)
• Importance of your own inner guidance: what feels right? (13:22)
• Taking up a practice without taking on the whole enchilada (15:14)
• What would an integrated spiritual regime look like? Contemplative practice, reflective practices, depth psychotherapy, group practice & relationships, study, and bodywork (17:23)
• Lifestyle is another crucial element of a well-rounded practice (22:25)
• Trump’s malignant narcissism is in some ways analogous to how spiritual leaders attract followers: appealing to our pre-rational selves (23:17)
• How many teachers empower their students to leave the community and go teach? (28:20)
• Cultural shadows: e.g., independent America’s shadow is dependence...

Ep. 149 (Part 1 of 2) | In the third dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali brings us to a deeper understanding of individual consciousness, our true nature, in relation to pure consciousness. Once we come to know what consciousness is, he says, our spiritual experience truly begins. The conversation flows through many illuminating teachings: how true nature manifests itself in many ways—there is no one way, no final way; reality is only what we perceive it to be—there is no hard and fast reality “out there;” and the ego is not some sort of developmental mistake—it only becomes a problem if we become fixated on it. Psychology helps us see how the soul became the ego, Hameed explains, and psychodynamics reflect how our individual consciousness becomes imprinted by experience, the effects of which can be unraveled through spiritual inquiry. 

When asked how he is able to write so remarkably clearly and concisely, fine-cut like a diamond, Hameed explains that the teachings articulate themselves as he writes by becoming his direct experience in the moment. He is not channeling, nor is his individual self expressing an opinion, the teaching simply expresses itself by becoming his true nature. This conversation is inspiring on many levels as consciousness becomes more graspable and because, as Roger says, Hameed’s teaching is grounded in our being capable of realizing being. At the end, Hameed gives a beautifully resonant account of why we love freedom. Once again, Hameed’s profound teachings come as a transmission and are a joy to receive. Recorded August 8, 2024.

“Humanity needs realized individuals, sources of light and understanding, to keep the true spirit of what a human being is alive.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing the third dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, focused on the introduction of The Inner Journey Home, a diagnosis of our root challenge: dissociation (01:02)
• On humanity’s capacity to wake up from being asleep to who we really are (04:15)
• This path is a journey into reality, not focused specifically on relief from suffering (07:00)
• Reality is only what we perceive it to be (08:31)
• The main delusion we suffer from is believing the way we experience this world is the only way (10:48)
• Spiritual work doesn’t try to resolve social conflicts—it is for individuals and small groups to transform (13:41)
• Humanity needs realized individuals, sources of light and understanding, to keep the true spirit of what a human being is alive (15:28)
• Hameed’s experience of writing: the teaching articulates itself and becomes his experience in the moment—that’s why there is a transmission (16:42)
• True nature is the fundamental truth of human beings, the nature of consciousness—it’s not physical but at some point the distinction between physical and spiritual disappears (24:27)
• True nature manifests itself in many ways: there is no one way, no final way (26:00)
• The journey of ascent and descent: how we come to recognize ourselves as the absolute dimension and how we bring the vastness back into the realm of life (28:47)
• An individual is not a separate person; the complete human being is one who integrates both heaven and earth (32:45)
• When did Hameed start...

Ep. 84 (Part 2 of 2) | Lama Surya Das, beloved meditation teacher, scholar, pioneer of bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West, and author of the bestseller Awakening the Buddha Within among many more, shares bright gems of wisdom from his extensive experience practicing Dzogchen, his long immersion in meditation retreats, and studying in person with the great spiritual teachers of Asia. Lama Surya is dedicated to getting the word out, and to young people especially, that the timeless teachings of the great masters are every bit as important and transformative in today’s modern world as they ever were. One doesn’t need to go on retreat to come to a place of wonder, understanding, and appreciation for life; Lama Surya assures us that daily practice of attentive awareness on the path of “awakefulness” is doable and effective in today’s world. This is the path that leads to self-knowledge, and we just need to explore and investigate to discover for ourselves that realization of the Great Perfection, of oneness, is never far away.

Lama Surya embellishes his teachings with humorous tales of his early explorations with psychedelics, his spiritual adventures in India, how he came to undertaking not one but two 3-year silent retreats in the great Tibetan Buddhist tradition of Dzogchen, and coming home afterwards with a mission for transmission. He talks about divine love and how amazing and influential it was to hang out with spiritual teachers who actually practice unconditional love, here and now. Lama Surya Das’ own deep caring and compassion shine through his words, and his well-known “jolly lama” humor often elicits laughter from Roger and John. “There are a lot of lanes on the highway of awakening, you just want to watch you don’t go off into the ditch.” His authentic, endearing humility shines through as well. He is certain that “if I can do it, you can do it, anyone can do it.” Recorded September 7, 2022.

“Spiritual elixir is the greatest panacea for our inner world: mind, body, heart & soul.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Going to India, discovering the practice of of Vipassana and the cave retreat yogi tradition of Tibet (01:31)
• What timeless teachings did Lama Surya Das discover in his 3-year Dzogchen retreat? Love is not the same thing as light (05:21)
• Mother Teresa on loneliness and love, and meeting spiritual teachers who really lived the talk (07:44)
• Living, practicing, surrendering: learning that love is greater than any dichotomy of like or dislike (08:36)
• Teaching of Pema Wangyal Rinpoche: “Don’t expect the struggle to end.” (10:45)
• Coming back after the long retreat (11:47)
• We need an applied dharma that works for the postmodern world today (13:08)
• Continuing the practice with a second 3-year Dzogchen retreat (14:04)
• How Lama Surya Das became a Dzogchen teacher and started the Dzogchen centers (16:57)
• The importance of spending more time with daily practice and integrating it into your life: retreats are not for everyone (18:21)
• How long does it take to awaken? Awakening is very personal (21:08)
• Pointing towards awakening: absolute truth and relative truth, the middle way (23:44)
• What’s next for Lama Surya Das? The 3 H’s: healthy, harmonious & helpful—teaching young people, spiritual activism (26:46)
• Epistemological

Ep. 123 (Part 3 of 3) | Joseph Goldstein, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, brilliant spiritual teacher, and prolific author, whose books have been foundational to many people’s understanding of Buddhism, mindfulness, and insight meditation, shares rich nuggets of wisdom stemming from a lifetime of ever-deepening practice. The focus of this conversation remains very much in the present, as Joseph describes how the leading edge of his practice never stops moving forward and how his understanding of the most basic ideas becomes ever more refined and liberating. In sharing his insights, he sheds light on and smooths the path for the rest of us: about the mysterious arising of compassion, made easier the more open we are and the less self-referential, about reframing our experience in a way that frees us, about spontaneous responsiveness, and about awakening being a gradual process—until it’s sudden.

Joseph’s new favorite definition of enlightenment is “lightening up” for the way it conveys a sense of making progress along a journey. And with his humor, humility, and easy, lighthearted manner, Joseph exemplifies and transmits a lighter way of being in the world. He makes it ever so clear that spiritual practice and meditation, examining and investigating our experience moment to moment, naturally leads us to compassionate responsiveness and out of the shackles of what binds us to a self that is ultimately just a construct. Recorded November 2, 2023.

“Nirvana is like the peace that comes when the refrigerator stops humming.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 3

• An ever-deepening understanding of refuge: for Joseph, refuge feels like being held (00:56)
• In mindfulness, unwholesome states of mind no longer act as distorting filters—they are wholly accepted (04:12)
• The effects of recognizing aversion and resistance to your experience (07:03)
• Liberation is impossible as long as there is attachment to the pleasant, aversion to the unpleasant (08:02)
• Nirvana is like the peace that comes when the refrigerator stops humming; it also describes the mind free of defilements (10:09)
• What is unique about the experience of nirvana? What gives it the transformative power to uproot defilements? (15:17)
• Does the path ever end? Who knows! (19:29)
• It’s the quality of your interest that is key to staying on the spiritual path: “If you want to understand your mind, sit down and observe it” (22:55)
• Joseph: “The fact that liberation is inevitable gives me a lot of joy.” (25:18)
• Reflections on how Buddhist teachings apply to the crises of today: the balance of equanimity and compassion make effective response possible (27:39)

Resources & References – Part 3

• Dogen, founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan in the 13th century
• A.H. Almaas, founder of The Diamond Approach, see also Deep Transformation episode #43, 

Ep. 28 (Part 2 of 2) | David Loy, Zen teacher, scholar, and prolific author, reveals his acute understanding of the crises we face today, the psychology at the root of the problems, and how we can make our way forward in this in-depth discussion. He has adopted the term ecodharma to focus attention on the challenge Buddhism faces now: integrating personal transformation with global activism and social transformation. As David points out, the focus needs to be on this world, with transcendence being a metaphorical understanding but not an excuse to abandon the problems we and our planet face today. 

Besides gaining great depth of knowledge from being a scholar and student of koans, David’s insights come from a plethora of nondual experiences, which led David on a path of eco-action. Ecodharma asks: How does Buddhism need to change? How much is dwelling in emptiness becoming problematical in these challenging times? What’s best for the Earth? Everyone says practice, practice, practice…when is the performance? Is evolutionary pressure going to create a new way of living sustainably? Recorded February 22, 2020. 

“When your sense of separation dissipates, it becomes not what’s in it for me, but what can I do to help make this a better world for everybody?”

Note: Regrettably 4 minutes of the recording were irretrievably lost at minute 21:26, but thankfully, the recording resumes just as Roger succinctly sums up the previous minutes of conversation. Also, this podcast was recorded live and includes, at times, some extraneous noises in the background. Please excuse them -- we felt the conversation was very valuable and well worth sharing with our audience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2

• The role of technology, moving into an age of virtual reality, and the creation of supernormal stimuli (01:41)
• Ecodharma: addressing the need for a new understanding of practice and walking the bodhisattva/ecosattva path (04:37) 
• Keeping “don’t know” mind in the face of the eco-crisis (09:57)
• How can Buddhism contribute to facing the critical issues of our time? (10:54)
• The Extinction Rebellion, a grassroots direct action movement (11:49)
• The election of Trump has highlighted our problems in making them worse (15:16)
• The problem of complacency (17:24)
• What signifies that one has started to walk the bodhisattva path? (19:42)
• Desire versus craving (21:26)
• Karma yoga and not being attached to the outcome (22:14)
• The cycle of withdrawal and return common to those people who have contributed the most to humankind (23:45)
• The deepest challenge of our practice is integrating the knowledge that everything is perfect, but also knowing action is needed to improve things (26:36)
• Evolutionary psychology, the evolution of religion, and what we need to do today (28:18)
• What socially engaged Buddhism has to contribute (34:02)
• The challenge of the gnostic intermediary to transmit a wisdom tradition across cultures and across time (34:59)

Resources & References - Part 2

Ep. 171 (Part 2 of 2) | An emotionally powerful and deeply inspiring conversation with renowned embodiment and trauma educator Mark Walsh from the U.K. and Ukrainian psychologist and trauma trainer Kristina Obluchynska, where we learn about effective ways of treating trauma in the middle of an ongoing war, what trauma therapists are left holding, and how beautiful is the human spirit when it embraces right action. When Russia commenced its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago, Mark went to Ukraine, located willing psychology students, educated them in body-oriented trauma therapy and training, and with Kristina and several other trainees co-founded Sane Ukraine, with the urgent mission of preventing an epidemic of trauma disorders in Ukraine. Beginning with applying trauma first aid and teaching resilience skills in places like the local railroad station where people were coming in from the front lines, and in bomb shelters, Kristina and several other psychologists have now educated thousands of people about trauma—active duty soldiers, veterans, survivors, wives of combatants, and first-line responders such as doctors, teachers, and social workers—and trained hundreds of them to become trauma trainers themselves. 

It is an honor to bear witness to Mark’s courageous actions and the humble heroism of Kristina and her team in the face of the devastation being leveled on Ukraine and Ukrainians. “We don’t grieve,” Kristina tells us, “because grief comes after safety. We don’t even use the word safe anymore,” she continues, “only relatively safe.” Mark points out that modern warfare is not just running around with guns—drones hunt civilians and if you move, they kill you. “Do we all have PTSD?” the soldiers ask. With Sane Ukraine, there is someone to answer their questions and teach them what they can do to help themselves and each other. Resilience comes from relationship—from connection to self, others, nature, and spirit. Does the concept of post traumatic growth even apply considering the intensity of this war? co-host Roger wonders. At the end of this extraordinary, heartfelt conversation, when asked what we could do to help, Kristina advises, “Help the army. We are talking here about healing, but what we really need is to survive.” Recorded January 9, 2025.

“It’s not reasonable for young women to be talking about mass rape and torture in dark bomb shelters . . . There’s a darkness that will be there perhaps forever.”

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Surviving Bucha (00:57)
• The pros and cons of group work (03:23)
• Does the concept of post traumatic growth apply in the intensity of this war? (05:40)
• Singing traditional songs helps foster the belief that we will survive this (09:50)
• How does Mark help trainers to find strength? Love people unconditionally and continually (12:31)
• There are actually less mental health problems in Ukraine than in the UK or the US (16:35)
• What has been most inspiring for Mark? The girls—and the purity of the work (17:24)
• The hardest thing? The huge grief (18:53)
• What are Kristina’s practices to keep sane? (20:05)
• What is the hardest for Kristina? The guilt is the worst (23:38)
• What is most inspiring for Kristina? The ability to do something for people who have been in the war (25:02)
• What is the difference between pre-Ukraine Mark and post-Ukraine Mark? (26:33)
• The pre-war Kristina and the post-war Kristina: everything is possible (28:12)
• How can listeners help? Sane...

Ep. 104 (Part 1 of 2) | Shachar Erez, longtime spiritual practitioner and integrally informed therapist in Israel, opens his heart, sharing his pain and overwhelming grief since the outbreak of war with Hamas and revealing another dimension of what’s going on than what we see in the news. It is a profound experience listening to a sensitive, compassionate person openly, honestly, courageously sharing what it feels like to be living with his family under threat of extreme violence, struggling to accept humanity as it is, working to help survivors reframe trauma to prevent PTSD, all amidst utter uncertainty as to the future of Israel and its people. Universal questions are raised: How to remain human in wartime? How is an ethical, spiritual, peaceful person to cope? Is there any hope for peace between Palestine and Israel? And, we are all broken—how do we accept the brokenness and continue to function?

The sustaining power of an integral-spiritual practice is clear—it is practice (intense workouts and meditation especially) that gets Shachar through and able to muster up the energy to help others, which in turn is so helpful to him. Shachar marvels at how sitting in the therapist’s chair allows him to embrace all that he hears—all the realities, all the horrors—when if he heard it on the news, he couldn’t take it. As a therapist, Shachar is very much thinking ahead to the near unimaginable challenge of helping all the people who are hurt by this war, in Gaza and in Israel, after the fighting stops. “How do you find a shrink for 12 million people?” he asks, adding, “This should be an awakening all over the Western world—people should not be living in fear like this in 2023.” Recorded November 1, 2023. 

“I feel I’ve been practicing my whole life for this moment.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Shachar Erez, integrally informed Israeli therapist specializing in helping couples fall back in love (01:16)
• Roger’s hope that this podcast can in some way help allay the extreme partisanship and anti-Semitism arising as a result of Israel’s war with Hamas (04:07)
• Describing murder, kidnapping, funerals brings Shachar to tears (05:22)
• John’s early experiences gaining an understanding of Israel and the Jewish people (06:10)
• How can a man with spiritual values like Shachar get through this time of war and acute stress? (09:23)
• The first week just doing small things to keep functioning, then being there for others, working out, doing Integral practices, is what’s getting Shachar through at this point (11:50)
• The blessing is a knowing at a deep level that everything is “okay” despite the horror and the brokenness (12:52)
• Struggling to find the “other” inside himself, in this case the ability to commit horrific acts, as part of his spiritual practice (13:29)
• The Nova music festival massacre, and working to prevent PTSD later by remembering, telling the story, and reframing terror into resourcefulness (14:16)
• A therapist’s ability to contain the realities they hear, and the idea of being a sin-eater, eating people’s pain (17:21)
• Telling the story, as an Israeli to Americans, Shachar’s heart is torn open—he is usually more of a “tough guy” (18:53)
• We are all broken: how do we accept the brokenness and continue to function? (20:49)
• Shachar feels he’s been...

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Ep. 88 (Part 2 of 2) | Climate change researcher, sustainable development expert, and activist Gail Hochachka works on the front lines of climate change research, asking—and answering—questions like: How does the way we make meaning, at all our different stages of development, relate to the ways we act on climate change? How can we foster more engagement with climate change? Is climate action scalable? And how are we going to show up for the people who are facing the greatest impacts? So far, in searching for solutions, we have largely neglected tapping into the human dimensions of the problem—the ways we understand climate change, the ways we respond, and the ways we can communicate together and make decisions about how to act. Herein lies the potential to come up with more viable solutions than we have so far, and this is the focus of Gail’s current research.

Climate change is such a hugely complex and also emotional issue, it is understandably hard for anyone to wrap their head around it, Gail tells us, but the good news is that research is showing that taking action—in whatever way seems most appropriate and meaningful to each individual—is scalable, and that there are ways, which Gail outlines, of creating meaningful communication between people who have very different understandings, to where people can actually come to a place of agreement on how to move forward. Gail’s deep understanding of integral theory and stages of psychological development, combined with her extensive experience in sustainable development, gives her a uniquely insightful perspective on ways of confronting the climate challenge. Gail relates that, surprisingly, a positive way to look at climate change has come to light, which is that climate change is actually presenting us with an opportunity—an opportunity to become more conscious about the way we live, to the great benefit of people and planet. Recorded January 18, 2023.

“We know that individuals collectively created the problem of climate change…but when it comes to solutions, we don’t honor that we individuals count.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Research shows that a sense of the spiritual arises in later stage development (01:40)
• At later stage development, climate change presents us with an opportunity to be more conscious as to how we live our lives (03:06)
• Climate change scientists only represent a narrow bandwidth of psychological development (05:43)
• Research shows, even if we come from different understandings, we can have conversations and find ways to act that we agree upon (07:41)
• Psychic benefits and how later stage individuals show up in every group (09:26)
• What brought Gail into this field of study and research? (13:08)
• Is how women approach climate change different than how men do? (18:30)
• Social holons and sub holons: the group’s center of gravity will either grow you or limit you (20:53)
• Mentors and the paradox of success (23:06)
• How predictable are the outcomes of our changing environment? (25:26)
• We have the physio sphere, the biosphere & the noosphere—it is the noosphere that would be the first to go (27:28)
• How are we going to show up for people who are feeling the greatest impacts? (31:55)
• Double exposure, overlays, looking at communities facing multiple issues:...

Ep. 77 (Part 1 of 2) | Greg Thomas, brilliant cultural analyst, educator, musician, speaker, and co-founder of the Jazz Leadership Project, is passionate about the power of culture to transform us as individuals and collectively. Where race is concerned, Greg presents an illuminating, multiperspectival view of the many layered issues around racism in this country. Early on, Greg developed a systemic perspective on how everything fits together, and realized that the issues that plague us are not just about race or racism, but the overarching systemic racial worldview. Greg offers that the way out of this morass lies in adopting a cultural lens to replace the racial lens. And Greg points out that when we further embrace a cultural worldview in a participatory way, it opens up all the doors and windows: creating room for individuals to shine, for groups to experience group flow, for all of us to enjoy beauty and appreciation—the way soloist, band, and audience come together in a shared musical experience. 

When Greg talks about the power of culture, sharing anecdotes about blues masters, blues philosophy, and great moments in jazz history, it becomes clear just how effective culture is at dissolving boundaries and heightening connection, and how music (in this case) allows us to transcend our differences, our daily burdens, and experience unbounded joy. This is a lively, impactful, and poignant dialogue, with wisdom ranging from the deeply spiritual, the psychological/developmental, to the political and universal. Recorded January 25, 2023.

“Out of the many…one: this is the challenge, the spiritual challenge, for Americans and for humanity.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Greg Thomas, jazz & blues scholar, musician, educator, and cultural sage (01:02)
• The blues speaks to everyone: as the Buddha said, life is suffering (03:04)
• The experience of Black Americans and their relationship with absurdity (05:07)
• Cultural appropriation is a misunderstanding of the way culture works: the difference between plagiarism and cultural appropriation (06:42)
• Flourishing happens when different ideas and cultures come together (09:05)
• Recognizing the fundamental tributary that the Black American experience and culture is to American history and American culture: using a cultural lens instead of a racial one (13:46)
• Greg Thomas’ spiritual journey: integrating traditionalism, modernism, postmodernism, Integral Theory, a pre-traditional experience, and studying African syncretism, Taoism, Kabbalah, and more (17:38)
• How Greg developed a systemic perspective on how everything fits together, the blues wisdom tradition, and the 4th zone of the Integral Map (22:21)
• Dealing with the range and depth of the wicked problems we have today is ultimately going to take wisdom (25:37)
• How indigenous wisdom was lost during the Age of Enlightenment and the challenge of the Integral movement to provide a framework for integration (26:08)
• One of our fundamental problems stems from the notion that we are separate from nature, separate from the divine (29:24)
• Out of the many…one: this is the challenge, the spiritual challenge, for Americans and for humanity (32:22)
• Is ethnocentricity (and therefore racism) a natural part of the evolutionary ladder?...

Ep. 74 (Part 2 of 2) | Daniel Schmachtenberger, one of the most brilliant and integrative thinkers of our time, expresses here his deep love and appreciation for reality itself. Daniel’s inquiries have led him to perceive the intrinsic beauty of the wholeness of reality and to the realization that everything is interesting—just like when you love someone, everything about them becomes fascinating. Along with this deep appreciation comes the desire to serve and protect, and Daniel is focused on investigating the drivers of the metacrisis and how best to meet the difficult challenges it presents, a subject interwoven in this conversation with Daniel’s findings and ideas about reality, human psychology, education, and the future of the planet.

Daniel is a wonderful testament to the far reaching effects of the right kind of education. He relates how he was homeschooled by parents who set him on the path towards goodness, meaning, and beauty right from the start, and who were dedicated to facilitating his interest wherever it led, to include systems theory and how to create a better world. This is a beautiful, rich conversation filled with gems of knowledge and insight—about our human family (actually, the lack of one), the horrible deficit of fathering in modern culture, how we can orient to the sacred and the meaningful, the fact that we actually didn’t evolve to deal with the crises we face now but to negotiate successfully as members of a tribe of around 150 people, and much more. Recorded January 10, 2023.

 “I cannot imagine a context in which one’s choices matter more.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2

• Does Daniel believe in God? (01:48)
• In Daniel’s “The Dance of the Tao and the 10,000 Things,” he asks, “Do atoms exist? Kind of! (08:23)
• The traps of reductionism in facing the metacrisis and how Daniel transcends them (10:49)
• The relation of physical crises to crises of consciousness: co-informing and co-arising facets of an integrative reality (13:11)
• Omni determinism, omni influence (16:31)
• Marvin Harris’ framework for understanding civilization: infrastructure, social structure, and superstructure (17:19)
• What in the interiority of human psyches, experiences & cultures are key drivers of the problems of the world? And how does our changed human genome, microbiome, and neurochemistry fit in? (19:00)
• We evolved to have attachments to 150 people—our tribe—so everything about bonding, attachment theory, the ideas of co-dependence & interdependence evolved in a tribal setting, in fact, we did not evolve to deal with what is going on now (21:22)
• The psychological generator function of the metacrisis results from perceiving the world as fragmented or made up of parts: conflict theory & mistake theory (23:34)
• The Realpolitik assessment of humans: we are dumb and nasty (25:54)
• It’s all based on a trade-off—we’re either trying to benefit ourselves now at the expense of our future selves, individually or collectively, or we just don’t realize the harm that is caused by what we do (27:26)
• Can we survive the current unprecedented metacrisis? No chance can we make it through without the catastrophes intensifying (30:08)
• The human family is not a real thing right now: there is no “we” (34:59)
• How to live a meaningful...

Ep. 73 (Part 1 of 2) | Daniel Schmachtenberger, one of the most brilliant and integrative thinkers of our time, expresses here his deep love and appreciation for reality itself. Daniel’s inquiries have led him to perceive the intrinsic beauty of the wholeness of reality and to the realization that everything is interesting—just like when you love someone, everything about them becomes fascinating. Along with this deep appreciation comes the desire to serve and protect, and Daniel is focused on investigating the drivers of the metacrisis and how best to meet the difficult challenges it presents, a subject interwoven in this conversation with Daniel’s findings and ideas about reality, human psychology, education, and the future of the planet.

Daniel is a wonderful testament to the far reaching effects of the right kind of education. He relates how he was homeschooled by parents who set him on the path towards goodness, meaning, and beauty right from the start, and who were dedicated to facilitating his interest wherever it led, to include systems theory and how to create a better world. This is a beautiful, rich conversation filled with gems of knowledge and insight—about our human family (actually, the lack of one), the horrible deficit of fathering in modern culture, how we can orient to the sacred and the meaningful, the fact that we actually didn’t evolve to deal with the crises we face now but to negotiate successfully as members of a tribe of around 150 people, and much more. Recorded January 10, 2023.

 “I cannot imagine a context in which one’s choices matter more.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing brilliant integrative thinker Daniel Schmachtenberger (01:32)
• Finding meaning in the sacred dimensions of our world and the integrated wholeness of reality (03:52)
• Part of love is the desire to know everything about your partner—when loving reality, everything becomes interesting (05:47)
• The fractal nature of reality, looking at it through different lenses and receiving different insights, and how the more perspectives you take, the more depth and richness you perceive (07:13)
• Is there something about the nature of the effort to solve world problems that is at fault in their getting worse? (08:36)
• Daniel’s homeschooling parents set him on the path to following what is good, meaningful, and beautiful right from the start (10:22)
• If you facilitate children’s interest, they end up deep learning in many subjects (12:24)
• Daniel’s early education included systems theory and how to make a better world (14:46)
• How did Daniel come to be such an integrative thinker? Compartmentalized education vs integrated education (16:32)
• The decline of quality aristocratic tutoring has led to the decline of super geniuses (19:58)
• Are we all the result of our education? Tutors and mentors (28:11)
• Integrating across ontology and epistemology, and asking what is the generator function of novel insight? (29:07) 
• Man’s greatest purpose is to serve the family of man: women, nature, children (33:07)
• The gruesome deficit of fathering in the world and what Daniel learned about being a man from his dad (35:19)
• On forgiveness, therapy, healing, catalyzing gifts (43:22)
• How do spiritual...