Western Baul Podcast Series

Grounded practice gives us direct experience of the pervasiveness of the mechanical, identified mind. Before we have direct experience of something, linguistic representations are ineffective at transmitting what it is. There is a distinction between results and practice. A teaching can be the result of practice, such as loving our neighbor, but we may consider it as a practice that we are unable to embody without having cultivated the necessary quality of being. Seeing the world as nondual is a result, not a practice. When nonduality is taken as an intellectual proposition, mind pastes over experience and co-opts the spiritual process, which is not realization. There are poets like Ursula Le Guin who use language to “point at the moon” or the sacred. There has to be some work with mind for the intuition and depth of nonduality to take root and inform all aspects of our lives. We may not be in a new paradigm of spiritual practice, but we are in a new paradigm of access to information and teachings. Nonduality is one way among others to talk about reality. Different spiritual approaches work for different people. For many, something has to be dislodged from its static position around the heart. There’s truth to being nondual and to being dual, which is paradoxical and indicative of a greater mystery. We can be grateful for language that brings our attention to something bigger than the small self. It’s not words but the carrier wave, where someone is coming from, that transmits what words point to. It’s helpful to hang out with people who share spiritual intention. Everyone doesn’t need to be involved in formal spiritual practice; lives are equally valid. Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick run Tayu Meditation Center and founded Many Rivers Books and Tea in Sebastopol, CA. They invite spiritual teachers, practitioners, and authors to articulate their stories on The Mystical Positivist podcast.

Our private life involves a flow between ourselves and others, and we may choose to share details of it with those we trust will receive it with empathy, responsiveness and understanding. Our secret life, on the other hand, is known only to ourselves. It would be hard to share with others except in a rather touching and intimate way. It's deeply personal and mysterious, unique to our individual being. A secret life can be compared to dark matter, which is not understood but which may be considered as the nothingness from which everything known emerges. We have created the world we perceive by limiting how much we perceive and defining how we perceive it. But the secret life is always behind this. It can open us up to a place where we want to be, where we find refuge and guidance. Poets have a natural intuition of the secret life. They need it to be in touch with what they feel called upon to do. This way of looking at a secret life is distinct from other perspectives we may have about what a secret life is. Different interpretations of a secret life are explored, including one in which addictive habits and shame are hidden. On the spiritual path, we may self-observe a shadow of compulsions and obsessions that can affect our work when they control us, which wait to be addressed. There is also the way some keep their practice secret by not talking about it as a way of protecting their work. In the spiritual process, some may address their need for help by appealing for it in an inner way and may not want to speak about it. But we may also feel a need for intimacy, to share more of our private and secret lives with others with discrimination. Vulnerability to the Divine is a state worth working for. David Herz is a spiritual practitioner who lives in Paris where he has been a journalist, technical writer, communications officer, and an English instructor at universities.

The mythic image of Sisyphus, of a muscular man pushing a rock up a hill for eternity, represents something that needs to be known in us. We can consider it in various ways. For some, it’s about punishment by the gods for immoral behavior. For others, it’s a metaphor for an unfulfilling, demanding life. Or it can be a jumping off point from which to ask the larger questions of life. We can be taken by these characterizations, yet the Sisyphus image can open us to some other possibility. This talk is about inner world conversations, or interviews, that the speaker had with Sisyphus based on questions evoked over years by the image. How does Sisyphus endure his fate? What motivates him? What rock am I pushing up a hill? Do I have to struggle like I do? Who am I? What am I doing here? The Sisyphus story and Camus’ writing about it can only offer so much insight into the human condition as we are willing to explore for ourselves. We generally seek to be relieved of a burden we don’t want to feel. To go beyond that and resolve our own personal story requires an inner necessity that won’t leave us alone, a courageous intention to look into our own lives as opposed to looking to others for answers. It is lawful that help is available when we have a real need. Perhaps eternity does not exist and there is only doing what needs to be done in the present, here and now. We are binary beings who see life in terms of good and bad due to our thinking. We can’t open to an unknown quality of life beyond myth, to the path beyond self, by thinking. Feeling something “off the page” that is beyond thinking allows words to be used in a more refined context. Spiritual icons can be portals into another reality that can teach us. Tom Lennon, Ph.D., is a retired cultural resource consultant. He leads groups with the intention of supporting the spiritual process in others.

The reason we have questions is that we don’t see the bigger picture. As children, we don’t recognize the trauma we experience, but as we get older the sense that something is not right in life may lead us to the spiritual path. What happened to us informs how we respond to life in the present, but we live out of the programming of the past. As long as we’re reacting from childish programming that was designed to protect us then we’re unable to accept what is in the present. Self-observation and writing are ways to practically work with our thoughts, emotions, and patterns. When we have reactivity, we can come back to the body, be as present as possible, and be kind to ourselves. We can learn to be with what is going on for us instead of thinking that we should not feel the way we do. Homeostasis is when the body brings itself back into a stable and balanced state. Our habitual reactions keep the world intact and keep us identified with the person we believe ourselves to be. Loosening the intensity of our reactions makes it possible for us to see who we are underneath that. There is always more, always a bigger picture. We don’t fear the unknown; we fear the known ending. The prison we find ourselves in is the known. We may say we want to get beyond our known reactions, but it can be scary and our inner work will bring up resistance. Who are we if we don’t have our stories about ourselves? We can see how affirming, denying, and reconciling forces operate in our lives. There is benefit to working with people in a group who can remind us of our practice. We can hold to and nurture the experience that we sometimes have of who we are beyond our reactivity and definition of ourselves based in the past. Elise Erro (e.e.) has been committed to a life of engaging spiritual principles and service through theater, support for the dying, and bringing enjoyment to others as a chocolatier.

The aim of all religions is to point out the path that leads to freedom, peace, and joy, which can only be realized through the surrender of ego. The principle of ego or separation permeates our lives. To realize oneness with God or the universe is to be conscious of the divine presence everywhere. Intellectual understanding is different than actual spiritual experience. Ego avoids surrender at all costs; yet the universe brings about transformation. In an absolute sense, surrender is already the case since the universe is what it is and couldn’t be otherwise here and now. When we are not flexible enough to move as the universe is moving, we cannot live in freedom, peace, and joy. But we can practice with conscious surrender and come to accept what is even when it is not our preference. Surrender is the intelligent way to relate to life since the universe rolls along without our agreement. Despite our apparent insignificance, we may lighten the burden of the Divine when we consciously accept what is. Everyday circumstances that we can surrender to and more challenging situations are considered. Surrendering to circumstance is different than surrendering to all of life. There is no proof of surrender other than the abiding experience, which requires self-honesty and has been the experience of different masters in all the traditions. Usually, we do not surrender to joy but tend to hold it in and try to contain it. Surrendering to others loosens the assemblage point, the way ego functions. Surrendering to our life purpose could be very ordinary or not. Surrender is surrender to self, but it is not so easy to distinguish between self and ego. Learning to surrender isn’t part of our education, but we can learn to follow what feels right and accept what is and act. VJ Fedorschak is the organizer of the Western Baul Podcast Series and author of The Shadow on the Path and Father and Son.