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Radiantly Whole and Perfectly Flawed: Saniel Bonder & Linda Groves-Bonder
118 Plays11 hours ago
In this rich and multidimensional conversation, Scott Schwenk is joined by Saniel and Linda Groves-Bonder—founders of the Waking Down in Mutuality work—for a dialogue on what it means to live a fully awakened and fully human life. Together, they explore the paradox of recognizing ourselves as being radiantly whole simultaneously with flaws and lots of room to grow, the power of mutuality in relationships, and why awakening doesn’t mean erasing your ego. This episode is a deep dive into radical embodiment, healthy shadow work, and the courage to be known and shows how relationships hold a mirror up for the ongoing inner work.
Saniel Bonder and Linda Groves-Bonder have developed a relational, integrative, and readily accessible breakthrough approach to spiritual enlightenment and wholeness best known as Waking Down in Mutuality®. For over three decades, as pioneering coaches of this embodied process they’ve taken enlightenment from remote temples and ‘Olympic athletes’ of spiritual practice, evolved it into a humane, ethical process and realization, and conveyed it into the towns, households, and workplaces of everyday people globally.
Born in 1950, Saniel was a Harvard Honorary National Scholar, earning a B.A. in Social Relations. After completing his spiritual quest, he has spent 30+ years “democratizing” awakened living with Linda and others. He has authored many spiritual books, including Waking Down and Healing the Spirit/Matter Split, and two novels.
Linda graduated from Ball State University with a B.S. in Art Education. A singer-songwriter, photo stylist, and artist, she toured with an international band and has released two solo albums, I’m Here and Joy of Being. Since 1996 she has focused with Saniel on teaching intensive transformation through their total suite of offerings, now known as the Human Sun HEART Work™.
Learn more about Saniel & Linda and Waking Down® at www.sanielandlinda.com and check out their main introductory offering at maxjoyinfo.com.
Scott Schwenk
Scott’s teachings, courses and private mentoring guide leaders, seekers and creatives to explore their deepest selves in service of thriving on all levels of being, both individually and relationally.
You can receive a free guided meditation and explore Scott’s courses, workshops, retreats, training and master coaching at https://scottschwenk.com and can find him on Instagram @thescottschwenk.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'The Choice to Grow'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to The Choice to Grow. I'm Scott Schwenk. Through these dialogues, we'll explore fresh perspectives and discover practical tools for navigating a thriving life that adds value wherever we are.
00:00:14
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I'll introduce you to innovators and creators from across our world who embody what it means to cultivate growing as a way of life. Let's prepare together.
00:00:24
Speaker
Take a deep breath in.
00:00:28
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Hold the breath briefly as you soften your shoulders and soften the soles of your feet and palms of your hands. Then exhale like you're releasing tension and setting down a heavy burden from every cell.
00:00:41
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Ah. Now let's dive in.
00:00:49
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody. I'm thrilled to be with you. I'm loving this adventure we're taking together. If you're here for the first time, welcome. Pull up a chair, pull out some tea, some lovely water, relax your body.
00:01:02
Speaker
If you've been here many times, remember to refresh your listening. Remember to come to it with beginner's mind. What can you hear newly? What can you hear in new ways?
Meet Seniel and Linda Grose Bonder
00:01:13
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My guests today I've known about for many, many years through good friends and teachers of mine.
00:01:19
Speaker
Seniel Bonder and his wife and partner in work and business and life, Linda Grose Bonder, have developed a relational, integrative, and readily accessible breakthrough approach to spiritual enlightenment and embodying wholeness.
00:01:35
Speaker
And it's best known and has been known as waking down in mutuality. We hear about waking up. So we're going to hear a bit more if that's new for you today. What is waking down?
00:01:46
Speaker
And they've been doing this for over three decades as pioneering coaches of this embodied process. That's key that our processes are embodied. It's not just something we experience on the cushion, but it shows up when we're on the phone with customer service for too long of a hold. It shows up when the bank balance is concerning.
00:02:04
Speaker
So they've taken enlightenment from remote temples and Olympic athletes of spiritual practice and involved it into a humane ethical process and realization conveyed it into the towns, households, and workplaces of everyday people globally. And this is important because it is an equal opportunity.
00:02:22
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We have to be ready for realizations, but it's available to all. Born in 1950, Senyel was a Harvard honorary national scholar earning a BA in social relations.
00:02:33
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And after completing his spiritual quest, he spent 30 plus years democratizing awakened living with Linda and others. He's authored many spiritual books, including Waking Down and Healing, The Spirit Matter Split, and two novels.
00:02:48
Speaker
Linda, full of light, graduated from Ball State University with a BS in art education. A singer, songwriter, photo stylist, and artist, she toured with an international band and has released two solo albums, I'm Here and Joy of Being.
00:03:03
Speaker
Since 96, she's focused with Sanyal on teaching intensive transformation through their total suite of offerings, now known as the Human Son Heartwork. And one of the cornerstone things that they're offering, and we'll get to touch on this later in the conversation, is this live course that's um it's online, it's recorded, it's self-paced, and then it's got some interactive parts to it, which is called Maximizing Joy in Your Work.
Introducing 'Maximizing Joy' Course
00:03:32
Speaker
Life, Relationships, and World. I said that a little out of order. Maximizing Joy in Your Life, Work, Relationships, and World. It's an eight-session course featuring guest interviews with Ken Wilber, Rick Hansen, PhD, Mirabai Starr, and so many others.
00:03:47
Speaker
So we'll talk about that again later in the show. Without further ado, I'm so happy to be together in dialogue with you. Welcome, Senyel and Linda. ah Thank you so much, Scott. It's wonderful to be with you today. Thank you. Thank you.
00:04:03
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and might Very much appreciate your very warm hearted and deeply informed introduction. We can feel how much these things mean to you in your own journey as well. Yes. and Yeah, they do.
00:04:20
Speaker
One of the things I appreciate most, even just in generating your bio freshly and being with your background is this shared approach to caring about more than just one element of what we can call inner work and caring deeply about it, that it that it holds up not just when the eyes are closed.
Meaning of 'The Choice to Grow'
00:04:46
Speaker
So when you two hear the title of this show, the Choice to Grow in this moment, what does it evoke for either of you? In this moment, personally,
00:04:58
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or collectively, however you touch that.
00:05:04
Speaker
I love the title, The Choice to Grow, because it seems to me that each individual, and myself included, moves through every day with the opportunity to notice when things come into your awareness that it's actually shifting something about yourself.
00:05:27
Speaker
about how you perceive things, about how you feel things. And if each individual can even look at the most subtle, seemingly insignificant little things that happen during the day or interactions with others, we talk a lot about mutuality in our work.
00:05:45
Speaker
These kinds of things that are in our lives every moment of every day are actually places where we can learn and grow and evolve and deepen in our hearts and in our connections to others and and the world in general.
00:06:02
Speaker
So one thing that I know about myself is that when I engage with somebody, even if it's a checker at the store or you know a close friend or a family member, curiosity is one of the the keys to that interaction.
00:06:19
Speaker
And being able to really listen deeply and ask questions of the other is is a form of learning and growing and evolving because that can feed your heart.
00:06:31
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And actually in that connection with another, it feeds their heart too. And it makes them feel like they're recognized and seen. That's one of the things that's so important for me.
00:06:43
Speaker
And in turn, that person feeds me. I feel like they're they're being fed, but I i get fed. And it opens up my heart more and more to connection and to the world. And I feel like that kind of energy virals out, right?
00:07:01
Speaker
It's, it's, it's a positive, uh, joyful connection and mutuality. I mentioned before we began the recording, my state of enamorment with the work of H. Amas Hamid Ali and this diamond approach.
00:07:16
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And one of the things that I've been reflecting on that he points out is his view his experiential view that all of us are actually organs through which wholeness or total being is perceiving.
00:07:33
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So as I listened to what you just said, the mutuality, it seems it can be helped by those who are ready to recognize, well, we're all just fingers on one hand.
00:07:44
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So there's something already shared that doesn't need to be built, but needs to be recognized. experienced. Very well said. Yes, yes. Thank Thank you. Yeah, that recognition is that place of placing attention on the things that you're hearing and feeling, and then recognizing the shifts, perhaps, in that connection. So thank you, Scott. That was good.
00:08:11
Speaker
Did you want to say something about that, too? Well, yeah. I mean, it's a great question. What does the choice to grow mean to you? you know, as I contemplate my life, that phrase waking down has had progressively different refinements and clarifications and openings into you know what couldn't have been expected, as well as plenty of moments just working through the routines of living.
00:08:46
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But it's it's a beautiful phrase, and it's in some ways it's also, you could say, the choice to grow is, I'm not sure choice is the right word, but I'll use it.
00:08:57
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It's a choice to not know.
00:09:02
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It's a choice to open to what previously has not been. manifested in our lives, whether it's some skill or capacity we're trying to become more capable of, or some kind of next turn in the road, play a fork in the road, and you've got to actually make the choice, can't go down both both forks at the same time.
Opening to New Experiences
00:09:33
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So it's it's very much a being on the cutting edge of who, speaking personally, who I've been, how I've shown up in my presence and participation, and being open to whatever is being revealed next, which as Linda pointed out, can come from all kinds of sources,
00:09:58
Speaker
ah you know and including the checker at the grocery store, even if they're in a bad mood when you happen to go through. So yeah it's so much about daring to open up to whatever's next and clarifying what that might be and committing to the work it takes, whatever that work is.
00:10:23
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Daring to open up to what's next. That's a whole world right there. It sure is. In terms of capacities and then actually actively taking steps.
00:10:35
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that are aligned with opening to what's next without trying to preform it or attached to a particular outcome.
00:10:47
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One of the areas that I've been definitely and I'm far from the only one contemplating all of this in my own life is not my own life, but as a person living in a world that is just in eight months rapidly transforming in terms of social structures, the social safety net,
00:11:05
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not just in the United States where you and I live, but also in many other countries. And it's an interesting, interesting doesn't even touch it. It's compelling contemplation alongside the experience that there are multiple timelines happening all at once, multiple dimensional realities all happening at once.
00:11:25
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And yet my physical body seems to be only in one, I don't know if that's true, but only in one realm where these things
Navigating Multiple Realities
00:11:35
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seem to be happening in the world.
00:11:37
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So the contemplation about where where is best served by putting my attention in a moment to moment basis that's not an avoidance of anything, but also not a reification of things that are either unnecessary or relevant to my doubt development and service in the world and so on. What are your thoughts about that?
00:12:00
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Well, if if I'm hearing you, what what you're framing here is a question.
00:12:08
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To me, the you were earlier referencing the inherent into integrativeness of how so many people are registering what's happening now. I loved your summary, by the way, of of what A.H. Almas, Hamid, was conveying. and that's very strongly the case for us, that we're having to participate in all of these realities that we're... We're having to consciously participate in all these realities that we're engaged with in any case.
00:12:52
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So the more consciousness, discernment we can bring... the better in general, the better off we all are. And so much of it is a recognition that you said earlier, it's not merely about sitting on the mat, but living a whole life.
00:13:15
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And so much of it then becomes a recognition that what you do out in the outer life including, for instance, whatever steps any of us might take to address the greater political, geopolitical, financial, all ah all the realities that are cascading through, and many cases, quite shocking changes.
00:13:41
Speaker
What we do there is no less real, sacred, and important than the sitting on the mat or whatever our version of the quote-unquote inner work
Evolution of Spiritual Practices
00:13:52
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is.
00:13:52
Speaker
No more and no less real or important. That's really worth underlining and triple clicking. No more and no less real. yeah I recently, with a colleague that I think we share in common, Dustin DeParna, did his Intro to Mahamudra Retreat, the lineage she inherited from Daniel P. Brown.
00:14:14
Speaker
It was my first time meditating intentionally for that many hours with eyes open. and receiving nonstop pointing out instructions during what is called the meditation. I came from a world of meditation where you get five to 15 minutes of guidance and instruction, maybe be a visualization, and then you're left in silence with your eyes closed and whatever happens, happens.
00:14:37
Speaker
And in that experience, it was so clear to me the opportunity for deeper integration, deeper integration with These many subtle awarenesses that come online for anybody who's doing significant practice, attending to them, not giving them less attention, but also giving skillful attention to is my shoe tied?
00:15:06
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Was I kind as I left the checkout station at the grocery store? Did I leave anything unattended to in that coaching session with that client? Yeah.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, so those those those questions become equally real, sacred, and important as what is the nature of my consciousness?
00:15:30
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Who am I? Or any other inquiry question we might take into a meditative exploration. Yeah, I'm sorry. Just to complete that, one of the in the evolution of our work over these three-plus decades,
00:15:51
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early on, it came to be called waking down, which is a phrase I had come up with. It's in my my first book, The White Hot Yoga of the Heart. I remember when it came out. Oh, yeah. Great. Thank you.
00:16:05
Speaker
ah And after a while, at one point, and we were we were emerging as a collective, people who had been initially my students or students of Linda and me, and she had been initially a student of mine, which we navigated pretty well given the challenges of both teacher, student and lover, beloved. Yeah.
00:16:30
Speaker
And in your work, just to actually ask an important question about that, I'm imagining or and my hallucination is there's a strong transmission. And I think it's valuable for us to say, or one of you to say what tre you say transmission is. When there's a strong transmission of energy, there can be a power dynamic. And then you bring well, we want to explore ah romance with one another, how do we do that in the face of there's this power dynamic or differential that has been enacted for a good reason, but now it doesn't serve us if we're going to actually be eye to eye in this way.
00:17:03
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's a whole story. and And, you know, but from the beginning, because I had seen how these kinds of things had been handled and mismanaged,
00:17:18
Speaker
often in ways that are have been personally catastrophic to people, traumatizing. So we knew we were both you know mature adults at that time, back in the 90s. And when it became clear that we were moving toward an intimate relationship, one of the things I did was I said, listen, if this goes south, if this doesn't work, you know it could be devastating for your process.
00:17:48
Speaker
your Linda's transformational work. And I said, so the only way I can imagine having this be workable for you, should it not work out, is for you to take the initiative on everything about us coming together.
00:18:07
Speaker
And that was how we managed it. And I forget when i was how I got into this earlier, but oh well, here we are Well, we're relating through the lens of waking down and how that that structure, subtle structure came into existence. It named itself in a book, but it's really a subtle structure that you've been using to hold life.
00:18:26
Speaker
yeah and and And the transmission and the differential in where I was compared to perhaps where Sanyal was as the teacher at the time.
00:18:38
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And I was the student. So there was definitely a differential and there was absolutely transmission coming from and within and to everyone in the room.
00:18:49
Speaker
from Samuel as a teacher, but everyone, I always like to stress that everyone is transmitting. Everyone is transmitting their hearts where they are in their own life process.
00:19:01
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And so when I connected with Samuel, ah it generated something in me that helped me grow exponentially. And I had my realization through waking down and mutuality and have been teaching, co-teaching with Samuel for over 30 years now. So it's the transmission is really important to speak about because individuals who encounter each other and they feel something and it generates a shift in awareness or a deepening in perhaps their heart, a heart awakening perhaps.
00:19:42
Speaker
that's That's a good thing. Yeah. that virals out again to the world. so you're going to say something. Yeah, I'm just reflecting. I'm noticing two things simultaneously.
00:19:56
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ah One, the people that I respect as teachers, whether Sally Kempton, who I had closely in lots of dialogues with over the years and shared as we became friends, so much of her personal experience with me, which was invaluable. Her her experience going through ashram life as a as a monk as a Swami and what that was like as a senior teaching Swami the expectations the inter engagements with the guru and how that went and how that what had to be metabolized often from those interactions I'm thinking about H. Almas I'm thinking about my own life and that there's not been one awakening or one realization some have seemed stronger than others some turned out to be peak experiences that just stuck around for a while and informed a different way of
00:20:44
Speaker
viewing something but weren't a fundamental tectonic shift. And so now I'm and really oriented in this recognition that there's no end to the realizations.
00:20:55
Speaker
And I'm stoked about that, actually. Yes. That's right. It just keeps on going. Ongoing. where where Where I was going with that whole discussion of waking down, so the work was known as waking down from fairly early on.
00:21:13
Speaker
and is generally best known out there by that designation. But after we had gone on for a while and Linda and others had gone through fundamental shifts in their basic presence and participation of this embodied kind that we're helplessly into, it dawned on me at one point I remember announcing as we had a kind of emerging teacher circle in the work.
00:21:44
Speaker
And I said, you know, folks, of course, we can continue to refer to the work as waking down. That's natural and and fine. But it's more complete name or title or, if you will, mantra designation is waking down in mutuality.
00:22:05
Speaker
And the mutuality the The realness and importance of the other, no less than of the self, is as fundamental a dimension of the process as the waking aspect and also the down, which is both energetic embodiment and also shadow integration and recognition and integration.
00:22:35
Speaker
Some of the key teachers on the planet that we know about, that many people tend to hear about first, happened to offer those who were ready a psychoactive question that we could call inquiry.
00:22:47
Speaker
Ramana Maharshi, when people were ready, he didn't give it to everybody, who am I? Adyashanti, who's been a teacher of mine, shifted it to what am I? He felt that the who was stimulating unskillful cognition.
00:23:01
Speaker
Hmm. One of your teachers, Arida, who's been through many names, to my recollection would give the question, avoiding relationship, question mark.
00:23:11
Speaker
And I'm wondering the impact of that question in your life into the formation of in mutuality. Well, thank you. Thank you. Very good question. Very good question. And curiously enough, his...
00:23:30
Speaker
use of that inquiry question in his imparting it to his students, devotees, didn't really have a primary impact on me in this ah arena of of mutuality.
00:23:47
Speaker
The one who really hit me the hardest on that was Martin Buber. i yeah Yeah, and now. That was in the early emergence of my spiritual quest, my religious and spiritual quest, when I was in my later teens and early 20s.
00:24:08
Speaker
And Buber's fierce insistence on acknowledging and relating to the reality of the other in all its, his their forms was, it just,
00:24:26
Speaker
it kept me on a a path all through my years with Adida, as well as what preceded that, having come first to Ramana Maharshi.
00:24:39
Speaker
So, so that yeah, that that principle of mutuality, among other things, isn't merely from the specifically spiritual, esoterically spiritual ah dimension of my training, but rather someone who came into his fullness, Buber did,
00:25:00
Speaker
when psychology was bursting into the world and tending to get people looking at self, self, self, and his orientation toward the other.
00:25:16
Speaker
And then when they come together, the the the best of psychology and the best of the, what we're calling spirituality, there's this greater opportunity to really have something that,
00:25:29
Speaker
not only
Existential Joy in Spiritual Practice
00:25:30
Speaker
sticks, but actually informs how we experience any moment and what we're what we're bringing to other people in that mutuality.
00:25:40
Speaker
Yes. sure And I think that that phrase, avoiding relationship from Adida, is actually a bit different from the form of mutuality that we have taught and coach and encourage individuals to live as and in.
00:26:00
Speaker
Because ah i was never in the the guru tradition. I was not a follower of Da, but I'm very familiar with a lot of what Samuel had experienced while he was there.
00:26:13
Speaker
And from what I understand, there was very little mutuality as far as the guru and the devotees. And so we're very, very much different from that.
00:26:27
Speaker
um Yeah, so go ahead. Yeah, thank you. I think one way to maybe flesh that out a bit is that when I left at work that there's a whole story around that, not necessarily to go into at this moment, but fairly quickly, the basic embodiment realization the non-difference of consciousness and matter, spirit and matter, emerged as if it had been waiting to get shoehorned out of me or into me.
00:27:05
Speaker
And um I very quickly realized, oh, the way it works, even if our unity, our oneness, our sameness in and as the divine is verbally given a lot of podium time, the way these things tend to get lived is a basic existential inequality between the teacher-student guru-adept and the aspirant-apprentice, etc.
00:27:41
Speaker
And so on the altar of mutuality
00:27:47
Speaker
or or the the foundation of that altar, is for us a vivid living recognition of a radical existential equality between and among each and every one of us and all of us together that then has to be managed intelligently along with the hierarchical differentials
00:28:19
Speaker
in our capacities, our understandings, and and even between the generations of those who, you know, help help those coming up and have having been helped by those who came before.
00:28:35
Speaker
So I hope that kind of fleshes out. It does. It does. i mean, there's we could literally do a hundred part podcast together and not cover all the,
00:28:48
Speaker
powerful, empowering, clarifying nuances that really come to bear in ah practitioner's moment to moment life.
00:29:00
Speaker
yeah that's right There's just so much here. And it's really clear to me that there's no one way to see reality. I feel like that's still at the edges in terms of collective realization of that on this planet at this time. I think that's really ah probably a leading edge.
00:29:17
Speaker
or a leading edge of a leading edge, we're still informed so much, at least the geopolitics, by there's a one and only way to see things through the Abrahamic lens, judeic Judeo-Christian Islamic kind of view.
00:29:35
Speaker
And so I really value, whether it was intentional or not, how psychology has come in in and and really opened out something sometimes by great distress to open it out that makes us have to deal with more than we are familiar with.
00:29:58
Speaker
If you're going to be alive and not live in a cave, ay I'm going to encounter other people and then I'm going to get to see things about my view.
00:30:13
Speaker
and how limiting or inclusive it is, and if it actually works. no Yeah, thank you. Yeah, and that that's where we started in this conversation is is talking about that kind of engagement where generated aha moments of, oh, that is my view, but I feel like something is shifting in my view, in my stance, or in my belief system, because and belief systems can run very, very deeply rooted
00:30:47
Speaker
in our whole being, not just in our minds, but but down to the cellular memory of what has worked for us, what might be working for us now.
00:30:58
Speaker
And it's constantly changing and shifting. That's what's so juicy and wonderful about the work that we do with people. you know Our coaching and teaching work individually and in groups.
00:31:10
Speaker
We really encourage each individual to look at all the subtleties even, the things that we tend to negate and put push aside and distract and dissociate from,
00:31:24
Speaker
And feel, not just think about them, but just feel how it drops into the body and into the heart and how it's generating an energy or perhaps a realization in the moment that something has changed and that a particular belief system or practice or discipline may not actually, to use a phrase I like to use, sing to your heart anymore.
00:31:50
Speaker
Mm-hmm. let's let's Let's unpack that a little bit more, singing to your heart. Because I've had interactions with students or people who were kind of co-students with me in a particular teaching scene who used that phrase without realizing it to avoid dealing with something.
00:32:12
Speaker
Oh, that's not singing to my heart. Well, no, sweetheart, that's actually touching something that your heart hasn't yet recognized or you haven't yet recognized. And I love that you're not interested in that taste, but actually it's pretty clear that we need to lean into whatever that is, even though it doesn't seem to make you sing and dance.
00:32:31
Speaker
How do you unpack that that in some sort of ah I don't know, kind ferocity or ferocious kindness? Yeah, well, you know the the fact that the person would say, well, that doesn't sing to my heart.
00:32:44
Speaker
The way you handled that and spoke that was brilliant, Scott. Because perhaps, not always, but perhaps there is a deeply rooted underlying defense or protection that if the if something is is triggering them to say, oh, that doesn't seem to my heart, they may not be opening up to noticing all of the other elements around that particular thing.
00:33:11
Speaker
And so that's where coaching and that's where skilled individuals such as yourself and hopefully us in our work with people, you know, just loving them and guiding them into their unique discoveries of what is truly singing to your heart. Because whatever that might be, that's going to generate motion and ah maybe a new expression of a discipline or a practice. Mm-hmm.
00:33:41
Speaker
And everyone, what we've discovered for decades now is that everyone is so beautifully unique to themselves.
Uniqueness of Spiritual Paths
00:33:50
Speaker
There are similarities, obviously. There are similarities in the way that we work together, and there are also differences.
00:33:57
Speaker
And that's what that's the juice of life right? Right. Well, that uniqueness, if I may interject, is another piece that I'm avidly actively exploring in myself and in people that work with me, which is like, I'm quite clear and have been for some time.
00:34:17
Speaker
And now I'm getting more direct experience of it, that there's something individuated that's not the programmed or socially constructed ego structure. There's something individuated. Thank you.
00:34:28
Speaker
And there are layers between that and what we could call the thing we all share in common with all of existence, absolute total being or whatever.
00:34:38
Speaker
To notice for one to be able to onboard the skill set or wake up the capacities for recognizing is this thing that's arising, this characteristic, this quality, this experience that's arising with me coming from some sort of tension pattern of social conditioning construction through my childhood or or we haven't even touched on the things that we get conditioned by before we even have language so we don't have an actual way to describe them is it coming from that or is this the is this the actual
00:35:11
Speaker
individuated essence of what I am and how do I tell the difference? What's the feeling tone? Because I can't cognize it. What's the feeling tone difference? Yes.
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. The feeling. Thank you for using that word. Feeling. Yes. Well,
00:35:32
Speaker
the one of the primary ways that we speak of that greater all-inclusive or any Any word you put on it, there's ah another one that doesn't sound the same. That nature is is the heart, capital H. And this is part of my inheritance through my lineage of Ramana Maharshi and Adida.
00:35:59
Speaker
became very, very central to my whole journey and then to the work all through these years. And... Part of the way we see it is sounds very resonant to me with with some of what you're you're getting at there.
00:36:20
Speaker
And that is that, as we like to say, and it's something that I repeat almost word for word fairly frequently, the one great heart, capital H, that we all share equally and totally, not merely as a spark of somehow or a subset of,
00:36:39
Speaker
is coming alive and awake in and as and through everybody and all of us together, really all nature, all that exists. And if you take that seriously, it actually transforms the modalities of practice, or can, I should say, in the sense that a lot of what we help people move beyond is a view of themselves as ah self-contained bag of limits.
00:37:11
Speaker
Separate from other self-contained bags of limits. In the world, it's all individuated little chunks. Bags. Little baggy chunks.
00:37:22
Speaker
Instead of that view, it's a recognition that that greater nature is crystallizing in, as, and through each one's uniqueness.
00:37:36
Speaker
So in our work over the years, yeah, there's there's a lot of detail of waking down to mutuality and we have whole pictures and precepts, all structured ways of looking at it.
00:37:51
Speaker
But in in the actual work with individuals and our groups, so much of it is, helping people to begin to, as Carl Jung suggested, recognize that actually the the event happening here in human of evolution is not man seeking to become God, but the other direction.
00:38:18
Speaker
That greater nature is again, I like to use that word crystallizing. It is embodying as us. It is coming alive and awake as us.
00:38:29
Speaker
for that reason, among other things, one of my early mentors, as after I left Adidas work, said something to me once that hit me like a gong.
00:38:43
Speaker
Spirituality is not just evolutionary, it is itself evolving. It's so important that spirituality itself, the practices, the processes, the realizations are continuing to evolve.
Evolving Spiritual Practices
00:38:56
Speaker
They're not a fixed, rigid object. Yeah. And so there's great venerable beauty and fact effectuating this in honoring the words of someone who best we can tell said exactly something like this X thousand years ago or last year or whenever.
00:39:20
Speaker
And on another level, the danger of, i always stumble on that word reifying. It means. It's like confirmation bias is one of the ways I use an, a simile or a match. It was not a simile.
00:39:35
Speaker
like It's like, yeah, a simile. It's like confirmation bias. Uh, Anything can be reified. In fact, that seems to be, and that's one of the main things Almas uses as a teaching device is to talk about recognizing and releasing all of our reification. So to reify in my understanding is to um act, believe, ah think in ways that continue to feed a certain view and experience as though it's true and real.
00:40:05
Speaker
And to the exclusion of other views, like how many people across the planet, and I have been one of them, have a reified view or have had a reified view. There's something wrong or missing about me fundamentally.
00:40:18
Speaker
And it gets reified. And we have confirmation bias that it's true, we think. Because we go to the gym and we smile at four different people who all don't smile or look away. Well, maybe they had to poop or maybe they were in a podcast that they were listening to and they're super focused. But my meaning making will reify the belief system, whatever it is.
00:40:40
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. So in that sense, the word is somewhat applicable. And part of what we're helping people do is begin to recognize, going back to what you said at the beginning, that you know we're all like fingers of this great hand, and we are the hand.
00:41:03
Speaker
And so the both end of taking responsibility consciously for all of those dimensions of our nature and identity and unity and and difference with others.
00:41:20
Speaker
That's the journey. and It is continually evolving. Thank you, i'm really glad that spoke to you. Yeah, you know, you mentioned the the phrase, something missing, where a lot of individuals are walking around, they may have everything together in their life, ah you know, as far as a job and great friendships and a wonderful family, and on and on and on.
Core Existential Wound in Growth
00:41:45
Speaker
But deep down inside, they're feeling like still there's something fundamentally missing. We talk about that as the core wound or the heart wound of existence.
00:41:57
Speaker
It's more of an existential something missing instead of an outward thing like a watch or a car or money or whatever that might be. Or being good enough as a human to be worthy of love.
00:42:11
Speaker
I think this is this is really worthy of ah leaning in and unpacking more the what i How I would label it temporarily, and I'm pulling on Amos' language, of just so listening and reading that it's just there, is the enlightenment drive.
00:42:27
Speaker
this This drive, some you know in my earlier years when I was a kid, and I mean a kid seeking, like under 10, wondering about things, it was like the calling. The church called it, the called called to God. Oh, well that must be it. I'm called to God. that's that And it kept evolving the understanding of it.
00:42:46
Speaker
Then simultaneously, there's been areas of my character, my personality, my experience of being a human connected to other people where I just felt I don't fit in. I don't know how to fit in. I keep getting picked last in sports. I don't know how to do a pull up.
00:43:01
Speaker
I'm not drawing as well as the other people in my drawing class, like all those sorts of, of, of, uh, Something's wrong, something's missing. Yeah.
00:43:13
Speaker
Yes. we We would call all of those as core issues. Brilliant. Which is ah an actual thing that is causing you to think about it and to feel a certain way or to express something in a certain way.
00:43:27
Speaker
The existential wound, if you will, is Issues can be wrapped around that. But if you go deeper and you investigate it, and you feel deeper into that wound.
00:43:42
Speaker
We call it the existential wound because it is the foundation of our totality that is missing. That realization of who we are as a total being here, as an awakened individual who has the drive to serve or to help or to make change in the world.
00:44:06
Speaker
you know And as I say that, I get i can feel a emotion rise up because... um this is our passion to help individuals realize themselves and to bring their gifts and their service to the world.
00:44:22
Speaker
I'm sorry. it's Don't be sorry, please. It's it's transmission. It's beautiful. And it's it's it feels like a compassion that doesn't belong just to your personal history that comes through moments.
00:44:37
Speaker
Yes. And I
00:44:40
Speaker
and One of my books that we both have have a special feeling for is called Great Relief. And a friend and a literary agent who also knew Ken back in the day, a man named John White, actually wound up suggesting what became the subtitle, which is Nine Sacred Secrets Your Body Wants You to Know.
00:45:10
Speaker
Oh. And so the reason um it's coming to mind is because the the first secret, sacred secret number one, is most everybody feels like something is wrong, missing, or unclear at the core of life most of the time.
00:45:26
Speaker
And our orientation to that is that's not a mistake to be overcome. That's actually the evolutionary driver yeah that makes humans the crazy...
00:45:39
Speaker
beehive we are on this planet. Do, do, do, fine, fine, fine, get, get, get, see, see. It's the grain of sand without which there would no be production no production of a pearl.
00:45:50
Speaker
Yes. Exactly. yeah So, so yeah. And you know, this is one of the ways we feel that spirituality, this whole kind of adventure is evolving.
00:46:03
Speaker
To make room, like the in the ninth secret, goes something like this. You can't heal the core wound, but you can become conscious of it, in it, and as it.
00:46:19
Speaker
And so that as then is living in this kind of embodied clarity, if you will, existential joy, a zillion names you can come up with for it.
00:46:32
Speaker
And also noticing that there's ah an ongoing, the word wound has its not so helpful meanings, tension, whatever you want to call it There's some kind of ah at the core of existence because we are simultaneously absolutely unconditional and indescribably unimaginably that.
00:47:03
Speaker
And I want to challenge this this angst for a moment. Not like in many realities, I won't recognize it as angst as as whatever. But in this moment, when we're talking about the ways that the cognitive mind, the thinking mind, based on my past, paints meaning over things that are just are, I recognize that if I If I slow down and I put myself on the court being the one experiencing what you're describing ah in the so-called angst, if I drop the labels, what's happening?
00:47:37
Speaker
There's a sensation of energy doing something. That's it. Hmm. If I can begin to perceive it that way without suppressing anything and get interested in in mutuality with the energy I'm sensing without pushing or pulling back and just be right there at the edge with it, like pressing hands but not pushing or pulling with another human, yeah I find that it's actually this beautiful full psychoactive something that I would have missed when I was going to the familiar
00:48:12
Speaker
a label of angst because it didn't feel like ease or joy and the way that I knew ease or joy. Exactly. That's the great relief that we're talking about.
00:48:24
Speaker
That right there. And so so what yeah what what we see with people, and by the way, when people are really working and living this, you know they don't use big words like existential rubb blah, blah, blah.
00:48:37
Speaker
Or all the language we inherited from venerable tradition. They say stuff like, you know, I'm still feeling kind of like shit all the time in some weird way. Yeah.
00:48:49
Speaker
But, and I don't know what to make of it, there's this okayness. Even in the midst. Even in the midst. And simultaneous. Yes. Yeah. You know, I mean, two of our favorite words are both an and with a slash between them. Yes.
00:49:05
Speaker
And simultaneity. And simultaneity. We talk a lot about that. And individuals who've had the, what we call, second birth awakening, conscious embodiment together as the onlyness of being.
00:49:20
Speaker
they talk about how the paradox of that simultaneity, the both and existing together is it's just real for them.
00:49:32
Speaker
It's, it is their truth. They're singing to their heart. um Yeah. I feel like I'm still getting accustomed to that, you know, like suddenly being put into, this is not the best analogy because what I'm experiencing is much more subtle and nuanced, but like being put into a rental car of a style that
Awareness and Spiritual Growth
00:49:53
Speaker
I've never driven on the opposite side of the road than I'm used to in a country I've never been to with signs I can't read in my own language kind of thing.
00:50:04
Speaker
Yeah, that kind of thing. That's a good one. That's a good one. But the simultaneity is like, You know, Dan Brown and his amazing research at Harvard as a lineage carrier of Tibetan Buddhism did so much research and showed, proved that awareness moves many times faster than thought. It's one thing to know that cognitively, to have read about it, to be able to conjecture. It's a whole other thing to be walking down the street, perceiving or experiencing from this wideness that has no horse in the race, but is moving.
00:50:39
Speaker
At the same time as having aspects of persona that are like, screw that, fuck that person. That's just awful or whatever that might be um happening at the same time. And then how do I hold all of that? How do I hold when I've had, and many of you listeners have had a provisional recognition that there's something that you and i are that doesn't go away, doesn't come and go.
00:51:08
Speaker
is the source of wholeness, but it maybe isn't informing all of our moments yet. And at the same time, we may have a lover or a friend or a colleague who we're frustrated with.
00:51:19
Speaker
And somehow we're experiencing both those things at the same time. And there's not yet a lot of folks out there embodied as teachers and coaches who know how to point us in the direction of working with that.
00:51:32
Speaker
Yes, yes. and And that's part of how spiritual spirituality, quote unquote, this kind of adventure or enterprise is itself evolving.
00:51:43
Speaker
hadn't I mean, when I began doing my work and speaking about it, i had to come up with many new ways of saying things because I just didn't find anything that captured it somehow or expressed it properly somehow.
00:52:05
Speaker
and And what's beautiful and also I think very challenging about this next era that's opening up is that that that greater capacity for the both and synchrony of of living and participation really is quote unquote democratizing itself. It's like a rhizome. our Our friend Jeremy Johnson, you may be aware.
00:52:35
Speaker
Yeah. Jeremy. I love Jeremy. I can't say that it's easy to read his writing. i try and I'm drawn to it, but it's like i have to read each sentence about 20 times.
00:52:46
Speaker
He's so smart. And he's supposedly the popularizer of Gebser. who's Right. I haven't even tried Gebser. Oh, yeah. So anyway, there's there is this this emerging event.
00:53:03
Speaker
And I got that word rhizome from Jeremy. Yeah. it's like mushrooms sprouting on a forest floor, but they're not all the same. Well, what's important to note about a rhizome before we move past this very powerful word for you listeners, rhizome is something that reproduces through its roots.
00:53:23
Speaker
And so by example, I had a roof bed garden on top of my apartment before the landlord outlawed it. And I didn't know better. And one of the ah vegetable, vegetable, whatever I put in there was mint. I thought I'll grow some mint.
00:53:38
Speaker
Well, nobody had told me and I didn't know that you don't do that unless it's the only thing in the pot. And you definitely don't put mint right into the ground because it's a rhizome. It can spread through its roots, the tiniest bit of root it can reproduce, and it will spread in all directions, choking out all the water and nutrients.
00:53:57
Speaker
When i rolled when i li I literally rolled up the soil, it was a carpet of roots from just the mint. Literally thick carpet of roots. So that's some of, I think, maybe what Jeremy's indicating in using the word rhizome is how things can spread, how things do spread, whether it's beneficial or deleterious.
00:54:19
Speaker
Yes. And and the the bad part of the spreading can choke out part of the good you know, expressions and ideas that are out there, perhaps sometimes. Let's put this on the map with maximizing joy to some degree so that we're actually teasing this out in something that maybe is more relatable than just my theories.
Finding Joy Amidst Challenges
00:54:41
Speaker
So joy and this year in my membership community is about living from magn magnetic joy. And one of the things that was launched in January, right? And then we have a whole lot of changes ah in the country's leadership.
00:54:56
Speaker
and in what's happening in the United States. So suddenly people are like, magnetic joy, what are you crazy? Like, this doesn't feel very joyful. So how we hold what we've been discussing so far through the lens of joy, i at some point in life thought, oh, well, I'm practicing joy or I've did all these workshops to experience more joy, to grow my capacities for living from joy.
00:55:21
Speaker
And I don't feel joyful right now. So something's wrong with either them, me or life. ah Thank you. Thank you. Whoa, yes. We do have the ups and downs of living in and as joy, definitely.
00:55:38
Speaker
And we talk about the two kinds of joy that... are that is experiential, you know that in a moment when we're engaging with someone and we're laughing or we're watching a funny movie or you know things that happen in life that are joyful, that really make us happy, that's experiential. But then there's the existential joy that is the underlying, once again, foundation of our hearts that just exist as love.
00:56:10
Speaker
as pure joy, as happiness. And it may not necessarily show up in life or in your experience as that. But if you were to step back,
00:56:22
Speaker
If you're feeling funky, you know, and something's happening, step back, close your eyes, take a deep breath and access that heart and access that energy of the existential joy that is always there and that everyone is on some level radiating.
00:56:40
Speaker
Linda, would you go a little further and just guide us through a brief experience of touching it? Yes. And brief, don't let that hem you in in any way, that word breathing. Okay.
00:56:51
Speaker
Yeah, I would love to do that. I have ah lots of guided meditations that I do. But most of the time when I'm working with someone, it can be very spontaneous. So today, it'll be a spontaneous guidance, an experiential thing that we can all kind of participate in or not. If you're driving, please pull over for this or save this exercise for another moment.
00:57:17
Speaker
Yes, indeed. Yeah. Or you can even as you're driving, just take those deep breaths and focus on on the joy and the beauty of your surroundings as you're driving.
00:57:31
Speaker
So, yeah. So let's just sit and close our eyes just for a moment and take three deep breaths all the way down into the belly.
00:58:04
Speaker
All right, so now just centering yourself and allowing yourself to feel the body and feel any kind of tension or anxiety perhaps that's in the body and just shake it out a little bit.
00:58:22
Speaker
Put attention and focus your heart on that spot and just release and breathe into it and embrace it.
00:58:33
Speaker
There's nothing wrong. You're not doing anything wrong if you have that kind of anxiety your tension in the body is just there. And now it's diminishing as you breathe into that spot.
00:58:46
Speaker
Or it could
Guided Meditation on Existential Joy
00:58:47
Speaker
be more than one spot. So I was speaking to the existential joy that we all are living as, but it's really difficult sometimes to access that existential heart of joy or love or consciousness or being.
00:59:07
Speaker
So bring the joy, the concept or the idea of joy directly into your awareness and drop it right down into the center of your heart.
00:59:21
Speaker
And as you're feeling the heart and contemplating the heart as joy, envision it as a glowing, beautiful nectar love balm of bright golden light.
00:59:44
Speaker
And that golden light is the sun that is rising in your heart.
00:59:52
Speaker
And that sun is pure joy.
00:59:57
Speaker
And when I speak about joy, I so also speak about the beautiful feeling sense of love
01:00:08
Speaker
that we all are as well.
01:00:14
Speaker
So feel that sun in your heart rising and blazing and radiating out in all directions through your whole body, through all of the rooms that you're in all just blazing out to all creation.
01:00:35
Speaker
And as it's blazing out, it has that feeling, sense, and element of joy that is touching all creation, all beings. the entire planet, the entire universe, on and on and on.
01:00:57
Speaker
Now bring your attention to your own personal heart. And if you feel so moved, put your hands on your heart
01:01:08
Speaker
and know that that is pure love.
01:01:13
Speaker
That sun that is rising in your heart as you exists as joy and you can access that at any given moment just even as you're doing a daily task you you can take a breath place your attention on your heart as joy and remember that it radiates out to all creation all beings everywhere
01:01:41
Speaker
one more breath and then we're done
01:01:52
Speaker
That's a great micro practice to do more than one time a day. Check in. Yes. Yeah. And of course, listeners, there's nuances. You know, i want you to feel heard and seen and felt if you have been experiencing some difficult emotion today and it didn't feel like you touched joy.
01:02:15
Speaker
ah just want to honor, acknowledge, we want to and honor, acknowledge that your intention to practice is one of the ways joy was actually reaching through your difficulty and that there's no right experience to have.
01:02:29
Speaker
A seed has been planted. ah seed has been planted. And maybe the second time or third time you listen to this recording,
01:02:39
Speaker
you can trust that it's going to go deeper when you're when you're not worried about being a particular way or getting to some sort of state. That's right. Thank you for that, Scott. yeah So much of the time if someone does a meditation or a practice and they aren't quite quote unquote getting it, they feel like they're feeling and absolutely not.
01:03:03
Speaker
And I found that people actually have that as a pattern yeah of getting excited to and finding a great teacher who has a strong transmission and a really great logos of what they're teaching.
01:03:15
Speaker
And they'll go in repeat the same thing and not see how I'm getting in my own way to keep repeating the experience of, I don't get it. Yes. yeah And I think that can open the door to us touching on the power and the importance of the skill called inquiry.
01:03:33
Speaker
things that keep repeating themselves in my life become a doorway rather than something to stress about. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
01:03:46
Speaker
I'd like to go back to, and to use that phrase, the sun in your heart is rising. And this is really, it's kind of our, uh, super spin supersonic elevator pitch or statement or proclamation.
01:04:05
Speaker
Mantra. Mantra. The sun in your heart is rising.
01:04:10
Speaker
Because it's it's not merely metaphorical. And the way my process unfolded and then our work has shown up over the years
01:04:26
Speaker
is through a recognition that quite literally in our heart of hearts, and even anatomically, part the great meeting of science and spirit in the 20th century was that at at the beginning of that century, some English anatomists discovered where the source of the heartbeat is and the in in the mammalian heart.
01:04:54
Speaker
not only human, but all mammals. And it's a place that's called the sinoatrial node, and it's a specific aspect of the tissue that doesn't have an outstanding physical thing that can be seen, but that's where the action is, in the right atrium, the upper right chamber of the heart.
01:05:16
Speaker
The heartbeat is initiated from that place. And this is the same place in the heart that first Ramana Maharshi and then Adida acknowledged, hey, folks, this is this is where the real action is.
01:05:32
Speaker
This is senior even to the great light of divinity above. And this is on the left side, the left heart, not the right. The right side.
01:05:43
Speaker
The right side, the right side. So not where the physical heart is. Got it. Yeah. So there's a physical physical mass on the left, the heart of spirituality, the Anahata chakra, you know known by such names in the center.
01:05:58
Speaker
And there is this, in some ways, hidden place that is now, from our perspective, blazing itself into self-aware awakeness in and as and through all of these bodies. And that's a long evolutionary journey, but it's stepping up at speed now. yeah And so that's the place, if you will.
01:06:27
Speaker
And we're not saying that everybody has to have an experience, a feeling of it a vision or anything like that. But from that place that is also the source of our every living moment, our consciousness, our life, that's where the existential joy is rooted. And it is simply accessible there.
01:06:52
Speaker
no matter what we're going through. And when we say accessible, I love the way you were putting it and Linda was describing it. Accessible doesn't mean that therefore we're having a gloriously loving experience.
01:07:07
Speaker
In fact, it can be very much a still small voice presence intuition. But the more confident we become in and as and of that,
01:07:19
Speaker
the more that existential joy then can coincide with the experiential joys that come and go, that unlike the existential joy are caused by psychological or physical events.
01:07:36
Speaker
And so you our course we have called Maximizing Joy, which includes...
Details of 'Maximizing Joy' Course
01:07:44
Speaker
Interviews with people like Ken Wilber and Rick Hansen, you mentioned Terry Patton, our late friend.
01:07:52
Speaker
In that course, we make the point there, there are these two kinds of joy. And it's totally okay for you to maximize both of them. Yeah, and in that course, in all of the interviews that we've done, each individual brilliantly bring in their own expression and practices that individuals can actually use endlessly ah and from the recordings.
01:08:19
Speaker
And it's it's just so rich to hear and feel them. in their own unique ways, bring their gifts to the group that we actually had in the course itself.
01:08:31
Speaker
we We do a presentation, then we did the interviews, then we also had a group of individuals that we had conversations with around the interviews and the presentations. And so it's so full and rich and packed full of things that you can actually do or not do to access joy, access more happiness, or groundedness, being. And just to add one other piece to this that I think weaves in a lot of what we've been touching on today.
01:09:05
Speaker
One of those great experiential joys, curiously enough, is doing the work of leaning into the stuff that you'd really rather not look at. That's right.
01:09:16
Speaker
yeah That is so right. That is so, so right. There there's there's ah a strength, a ferocity that grows as we dare. Use that word daring back at the beginning. We dare to look into, to feel into, to lean into what may otherwise, as you were saying, not sing to our hearts at all, apparently.
01:09:39
Speaker
But there is this deeper drive. And right time, place and circumstance, I see, is really, really important. Right time, place and circumstance for any particular trajectory in the practices and the teachings, that things are not one size fits all. And this is why it is so important to, at the right moment, have somebody further down the road in particular areas to interact with directly and get feedback.
01:10:05
Speaker
Thank you so much for saying it the way that you just did, Scott, because that that speaks to a skill from a coach or a teacher with their student or aspirin or whatever title you want to put on to this individual to really deeply, deeply pay attention, listen, ask questions, feel,
01:10:30
Speaker
as you're hopefully in person with a person or even on Zoom, you can actually watch their body language, their facial expressions, ask questions, pull them out and help them find their unique pacing and rhythm because not everyone is the same.
01:10:48
Speaker
And if you push and push and push an individual who's not ready to engage in a very deeply traumatic experience that might be still informing them that could be re-traumatizing them so you need to be skillful in that feeling sense and heartful sense of the other and then helping them in their unique way land more fully and then they go oh wow I just had this realization or feeling that's right that's right
01:11:22
Speaker
I mean, as I said before, I could say it again, they's so we could spend hours and hours unpacking so many beautiful, helpful, important things here, like what it really takes to be a guide in any way, a facilitator or a guide, what kind of embodiment before even standing in front of a podium or taking on a one-on-one client.
Teacher-Student Dynamics in Spirituality
01:11:42
Speaker
to be able to actually effectively show up without pushing too far, without avoiding dealing with anything and recognizing how our own as a facilitator, coach or teacher relational needs, who maybe trying to get met in that container where it's not appropriate.
01:12:01
Speaker
Oh, I had a really strong learning recently about crossing over friends with students. somebody who's been in my work for a really, really long time, or been taking sessions and and stuff like that.
01:12:16
Speaker
Long story short, we were away, there was a bunch of people and then I was spending time with this person, you know, going on walks and stuff like that. There's no romance is just not that gendered situation for me.
01:12:30
Speaker
But what there was was the recognition that this person felt natural expressing pain points or confusions about what had happened in the workshop or workshops with other people at the ashram we were visiting just whenever in my downtime.
01:12:47
Speaker
And it was really difficult to set a boundary without stimulating this person's unfinished wounds with her parents and feeling criticized. So there's this whole thing in it. And I had this realization and I had to say this to this person at dinner.
01:13:00
Speaker
whether it landed or not twice, hopefully it really landed. I said, I'm so sorry. i don't think I should have tried to build this with you in this way. I don't think it's fair to you that I should be trying to get a friendship out of this.
01:13:15
Speaker
I don't think that's fair or timely in this relationship. I think we can be friendly. But and I don't know how much that landed and there's you know like that. but I use this illustration because I think it happens in people's lives and we don't necessarily collegial to talk about it with one another about where we're making mistakes as teachers and and coaches and facilitators and how we might learn a little differently. So me trying to get my relational needs met from somebody who's seeking to grow creates confusion and distortion.
01:13:48
Speaker
Oh, wow. what ah What a brilliant story. and a very very good point right it creates confusion and distortion yes If both parties aren't able to work the the extremely challenging tightrope walk yoga yes of that kind of both end.
01:14:11
Speaker
That's right. And you have done it and I have it in other places. So I don't want to mitigate that it can happen and it does happen. I mean, Adyashanti and Mukti. Mukti, his his wife, who's now running the organization and the main teacher, started out as his student and his wife.
01:14:27
Speaker
So it does work where, yeah, and you it works where it works. I think what I want to touch on next about this is the level of the willingness to be present, whether it's comfortable or not, and learn from what's arising and be willing to receive reflections from the other that may not be easy to hear.
01:14:48
Speaker
Yes. Oh, absolutely. And that that also goes to the the coach and um aspirant relationship.
01:14:58
Speaker
We always start out right off the bat with an individual and we say, we We're here to to guide and to suggest. we're We'll never tell you what to do, but we're here to guide and suggest and to listen deeply, not just with our heart, but with our whole being and our hearts.
01:15:18
Speaker
And if we say something or suggest something to you that is really off base, or if you feel like we we misheard you, we want you to tell us.
01:15:29
Speaker
That's right. We want to grow and learn from that perhaps mistake or misunderstanding. And it's good for you and for us to hear that reflection back.
01:15:43
Speaker
That automatically sets an easeful place in the person's being when they go, wow, that's different. You know, I haven't had that in a while. And then I need to say in certain places, given what I'm told to teach by my teacher's teacher in particular in Sri Vidya.
01:16:03
Speaker
And there are places where I am going to tell you not to do certain things or not to do them in this way or to start this practice. But these are technical matters working with highly explosive sound pulsations called mantras that if it's not, if there's not a foundation in the nervous system for me to let you go ahead and work with that without speaking up and telling you not to,
01:16:28
Speaker
would be doing harm on my part. So it's an interesting balance between the non-hierarchical, we're all humans, we're all part of the same human family, we need to give each other clarity about what we're experiencing from a true place.
01:16:43
Speaker
And at the same time, when we're in the temple protocol, we could call it, when we're in the temple protocol, we're not in the food line together, but we're actually in the temple together. It's a different, there is a hierarchy there and there needs to be for safety.
Hierarchy in Spiritual Practices
01:16:58
Speaker
That's really a good point. Yes. There are occasions when we say this is really something that we feel strongly that you could try you know or do. And you know the doing is one aspect.
01:17:11
Speaker
The natural flow is quite another. But that's really good point. And I take your point. Sally was such a good teacher about this. I don't force people to do anything, even if I know it's the best thing.
01:17:22
Speaker
Like, OK, I have a student who who is signed up for ah pretty extensive late stage practitioner training with my teacher.
01:17:34
Speaker
And i have real reservations about previous practice being sufficient for that. And in my practice, and then we've had a couple of dialogues and I feel better about it now, but I really resolved it down to the place of I've had plenty of things that I involved myself with that I had to learn through direct experience and see it for myself.
01:17:55
Speaker
So sometimes people got to go through something and experience, oh, that really destabilized me. I shouldn't have done that practice seven days in a row. I should have done what you said and just done it once a week. Yes.
01:18:07
Speaker
Yeah. It unleashed too much more than I could handle it that with my skill set. There you go. Yeah. Pacing and rhythm. So much. Each individual so different. And part of what you mentioned earlier, another of Linda's favorite phrases is, this is not a cookie cutter process.
01:18:28
Speaker
Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you.
01:18:32
Speaker
i mean Here's another one where I'm quoting from the great saintly one in her ways. Yeah.
01:18:42
Speaker
Living and speaking your truth is not a popularity contest.
Reflections on Life's Importance
01:18:50
Speaker
And it's also not just emptying the contents of your mind on disability. Or dumping, as they say. Perfectly said. yeah You guys, there's a question I ask every guest, and it's based on a quote I'm i'm fairly certain you've heard more than once.
01:19:06
Speaker
I first heard it when Adyashanti mentioned it in Palo Alto like 20 years ago. and a satsang. It comes from Suzuki Roshi, Shunryo Suzuki Roshi, who opened the Zen Center of San Francisco in the 60s.
01:19:18
Speaker
And he would say, death is certain, the time is not. What is the most important thing?
01:19:30
Speaker
And I recognize with most of my guests that the word the, that article thrown in there, actually makes it a difficult thing because most people go like, wow, I don't know if there's just one thing Mm-hmm. And my point of view may change. So to I don't want to call it the.
01:19:47
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it does change. ah The most important thing can can shift in a moment sometimes.
01:20:00
Speaker
In this moment, for me, the most important thing
01:20:08
Speaker
is to...
01:20:11
Speaker
is to just be with you, Scott, and to send you a lot of love and to send all of your listeners and your practitioners so much support and wishes for wellbeing and grounding groundedness and safety and clarity and accessing the sun in their hearts and just spreading the love and the joy because this world needs it so badly right now with everything that's happening.
01:20:49
Speaker
So in this moment, the thing is being able to hold and support
01:20:58
Speaker
and just love and encourage and and pray wellness wellness for all, and that includes my beloved Samuel. I can't tell you how blessed I am to have this amazing being in my life.
01:21:24
Speaker
I'm so blessed. I love him so much. And I'm so grateful that we are co-teachers, co-partners, married. Co-livers.
01:21:35
Speaker
Co-lovers. Lovers, livers, lifers. So anyway, that would be my answer. and Thank you. Thank you for the blessing stream. Thank you on behalf of everybody that's receiving it.
01:21:50
Speaker
And me may it just continue in its toroidal way, yeah magnifying your joy. Yeah. Thank you, Scott. Sanyal, what comes up for you in response to the Suzuki Roshan? What are you saying?
01:22:09
Speaker
To be, speaking for me here, as you asked me. Yes, you, sir.
01:22:17
Speaker
To be as
01:22:21
Speaker
true or faithful as I can to my real and total self as best I can know and participate with and as it in any moment.
01:22:35
Speaker
while also consciously participating and collaborating with others to whatever degree they may be or or not be living in that same kind of way.
01:22:50
Speaker
So that, living in that kind of confidence of
01:22:59
Speaker
being true to myself in that way and true to ourself true to our greater heart that we share with everyone and everything.
01:23:11
Speaker
There's a follow-up question that starts, I want to ask you and Linda, you could take a shot at it It's coming for you, Sanyal, which is, and it may or may not seem related listeners to what he just said, but for here, it's just really strongly arising, which is Sanyal, is there a question that you're living with that's unanswered, that's organizing,
01:23:34
Speaker
how you're moving through your practices in your life and calling you.
Guiding Daily Life Decisions
01:23:45
Speaker
That's a wicked question. yeah
01:23:49
Speaker
I'm kind of known for those. They drove my mom crazy. And alternatively, sometimes when she's in a good mood, she said, you were born to be my teacher. And other times she ah just shouting at me, like, don't you tell me what to do.
01:24:02
Speaker
ah fun Yeah. um
01:24:07
Speaker
the The inquiry is
01:24:15
Speaker
what is auspicious and necessary for me to do or attend to be aware of today, in this moment, in this moment, in this moment.
01:24:31
Speaker
With the understanding that Auspicious and necessary are two different kind of hoops of flame. And to get through the auspicious hoop is possible, sometimes in situations and ways where necessary, those the qualifications for necessary don't get met.
01:24:59
Speaker
So it might seem auspicious for me to be undertaking XYZ. And if I'm lucky and tuned in enough to the grace of it all, I'll figure out, yeah, seems auspicious, but it ain't necessary.
01:25:15
Speaker
It's not called for. And as I get older, I've sometimes joked, I've always wanted to be an elder, but it didn't occur to me that I'd have to get old.
01:25:29
Speaker
ah know I live in l LA that lands in a particular way here. Oh So, so, you know, it's the the awareness of the amount of time left, however short or long it may be, perhaps not making room for everything that seems to me would be auspicious and I hope is necessary, but who knows?
01:25:54
Speaker
Sure. So thank you Great question. Linda, is anything arising that you wanted to say from your seat about that question? Is there any question that you're living with that's organizing your life, your practice, your movements through the day that's unanswered so far?
01:26:15
Speaker
Well, in this moment, what what arises is um And I think it's directly linking up to my invocations and our pujas that we do together. that is... Pujjas are rituals for everybody who doesn't know that word in Sanskrit.
01:26:32
Speaker
Thank you. Ceremonies. Yes. Our sacred ceremonies of... invoking and attracting more individuals who have the hungry, hurting hearts of the world who are desperately seeking for that equanimity.
01:26:51
Speaker
Perhaps not even perhaps a conscious embodied awakening, but just a place in their heart of hearts that they're looking for answers. They're looking for how to fill the void, so to speak, in their life.
01:27:09
Speaker
Even if it's just ah a little bit here and there, how For me, how do we attract and reach more of the hungry, hurting
Addressing Spiritual and Emotional Needs
01:27:19
Speaker
hearts? Because that is, as I mentioned before, tearing up. That's my passion.
01:27:24
Speaker
That is his passion. i I honestly feel like I was placed on this planet, Scott, to do what I'm doing. to help in any way that I possibly can to to serve, you know to help each individual and hopefully multiple individuals in the world.
01:27:49
Speaker
And that's my heart. That's my passion. That's what compassion does. That's what love does. yes, yes. yes And when I move in and every day, if I'm at the store and I'm engaging, I make it a point. It just naturally comes to me to engage with someone, you know, the checker, you know, the people who are stocking the shelves or wherever I am.
01:28:16
Speaker
and constantly engaging with with people and asking them how they're doing and trying to bring in a little bit of happiness. in that connection which feeds me as well so once again it's that circle right yeah so you for the question i really uh really appreciate what you were just saying linda and i think to bring mine my answer a little bit out of the more abstract kind of response that i gave earlier which isn't any less real because it's abstract but and by the way for me it was super concrete your answer
01:28:53
Speaker
Okay, good. Thank you. I'm glad. But yeah, it's very much
01:29:00
Speaker
being aware that in some ways we've been invested with a breakthrough vision process.
Legacy in Spiritual Work
01:29:10
Speaker
One of the next evolutions of this kind of participation in life.
01:29:17
Speaker
And yeah, how how to... how to get it so that people who are in a position to appreciate its kind of technical, esoteric details, and those who are just looking for a little lightening and brightening in the midst of this crazy, yeah seemingly ever darkening world in so many ways.
01:29:45
Speaker
How we both, and in collaboration with others, can best be of service to all those people. And in a way that also for us, this is know real important, builds on what Linda was saying, permits us to live out our lives in the most enjoyable and fulfilling ways and to leave the legacy of this experiment so that it's maximally accessible and useful to others in times to come. yeah
01:30:22
Speaker
And i must say, I'm not going to get quite as effusive as she did, but I remember our friend Ken Wilber once said to me, saying, you know, there's this thing, it's the only time he ever quoted me from one of my books in a, we were doing an integral life thing.
01:30:42
Speaker
So he read the, the end of healing the spirit matter split where I talk about how Linda is the embodiment of the divine feminine to me more than any other person or creature or thing.
01:30:56
Speaker
yeah The greatest of the blessings that have ever come to me.
01:31:03
Speaker
I think that's about the only way a partnership can actually work and be evolutionary is if both people, or I guess if you're in a throuple, all three of you, ah choose to practice seeing the other in that way while having room for the human difficulties and flaws, but to actually practice that. Like said another way, I remember when Sally Kempton said to me about approaching or relating to a teacher, she said, I found it most empowering for everybody involved and skillful that when the teacher's in the chair, relate to them as the living Buddha or whatever name you want to give that. And when they're off the chair, relate to them so respectfully as a fellow human being.
01:31:40
Speaker
Relating to one is a as a living Buddha in the chair when they're in the teaching seat, and this is my experience, is a way to receive more of the transmission without grasping or chasing it. I always, no matter how close we got, and no matter how much of her personality structure I became familiar with with Sally, I intentionally, I told her this, I kept her just above me so that I could continue to learn more than just information, but the transmission streams that danced through her life.
01:32:08
Speaker
Indeed. Well said. And she certainly had that. She was so beautiful. And she had edges. And those who became friendly got to got to know the humanity, which I appreciated as much of a natural teaching as the yeah formed teachings that she shared. That's exactly right. Thank you for that. Yes.
01:32:32
Speaker
Divinely human. yeah Divinely human and humanly divine. Yes, absolutely. We all are that. thats Well, I look forward to future dialogues with you both. It's just a joy. It's so familiar, so familiar. Yeah, yeah that's how we feel too, Scott. Thank you so, so much for this time today.
01:32:54
Speaker
What a blessing. Listeners, we're going to end together as we do in stillness. And some of you are starting to have a glimmer of more of what's available in that stillness, even though it's about 10-15 seconds, your whole life can change in 10-15 seconds. And so much of the value of life, in my experience and that of many of my guests, continues to be things that can't necessarily be put into words but can be sensed.
01:33:21
Speaker
so We're going to end in this way. In stillness, you can take a deep breath. You could let go through every cell like you're setting down a heavy burden, perhaps soften the soles of your feet and the palms of your hands like you're opening a closed fist with your mind.
01:33:35
Speaker
And we'll just be together and notice whatever you notice. And if you're enjoying this, please like, share widely with other people who might benefit from these dialogues.
01:33:45
Speaker
So into the silence, we share ourselves.
01:33:57
Speaker
Loving the episode? Click to follow, like, and share it as widely as possible. Want to go deeper with the choice to grow? Explore the show notes. You'll find links there for going deeper with our guests, as well as how to work with me in the work of waking up, growing up, cleaning up, and showing up.
01:34:17
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Can't wait to join you in the next episode.