Living the Inner Life

Do we actually have free will or are things pre-determined from the start? Einstein believed in immutable, predictable laws of physics, differing from the quantum physics of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, who instead believed in probabilities that were not always predictable. This has also been a philosophical debate for centuries, perhaps as old as history. In this talk I explore both ideas an...

Silence is Golden, Be Still and Know... Our minds can become cluttered with 'voices' and static and a constant ringing of thoughts and feelings. We need to clear inner space to hear the still, small voice within. The wisdom of our inner higher power, or intuition, or creative inspiration often gets drowned out by the endless thought stream and emotional river. Breathing techniques and medi...

Personal Transformation is a process like Alchemy. It is also a journey - an Inner Hero's Journey - which is also process. Jung's termed this as Individuation - or going from the small 's' self to the capital 'S' Self. In Buddhism, this is releasing the inner Buddha nature. This all points to the fact that each of us have within us the seeds and substance for transformation...

The story of The Odyssey is the archetype for mythic storytelling. Yet even with the incredible journey filled with dramatic encounters and battles, it is essentially an inner journey of Odysseus. Same with Star Wars. Even though Luke traveled across the galaxy, the real journey was one of him coming of age and stepping into his destiny - an inner odyssey. We take this Hero's Journey many time...

Consciousness can be difficult to define, and William James wondered if consciousness was even a 'thing'. Consciousness is more than just our thoughts and sense of awareness - it is the sum total of our inner lives and all the tools and powers that we can utilize to think better thoughts, and, to think if better ways.

The meaning of life may come down to what meaning we bring to it. To make a meaningful life, each of us not only has to find meaning and purpose, we also have to make life meaningful - full of meaning. When asked what is the meaning of life, the Buddha held up a flower and asked, "What is the meaning of this flower?" (or, the answer is 42)

There is no difference between night and day - the Earth is always in a constant state of half day, half night. But from our perspective, it really seems like they are completely separate things. Same with people. Each of us are seemingly different individuals yet deeply connected with One Humanity.

Most inner work involves relaxation, meditation, contemplation and quietude. Sometimes you need to use brute force to plow your way through obstacles. Often these obstacles are ones we set in the way of our own goals. Resistance, self-doubt, and overthinking can become blocks that frustrate our aspirations and dreams. A brute force approach to these obstacles is to dig in, lean into it and push yo...

In Plato's "Allegory of the Cave", people are watching shadow forms cast on the wall, thinking that they are seeing the real world. In the movie, "The Matrix", most are also living in a false reality. Simulation Theory is very popular now, and it makes for an interesting thought exercise. How would you live your life differently if you found out that we are actually living...

Emmet Fox was a popular speaker and writer whose works include "The Sermon on the Mount" and this very small booklet, "The Golden Key". In it, Fox describes a method by which you visualize a 'golden key' as a mediator between you and what troubles you. This could be a person in your life, a condition in the world, or an inner conflict that is in need of resolution or he...

The practice of Divination - seeking divine wisdom - is as old as history. From dream interpretation and astrology to Tarot cards and Rorschach tests, people have long used various methods of ganging insight that goes beyond conscious thought. Whether you take the advice from these oracles or not, such a practice is a great way to get another angle or viewpoint on whatever situation or problem you...

Joseph Campbell suggested there are 4 functions of myth - the fourth being the psychological function that helps to show us who we are in the world. A myth in this case is not a falsehood, but an archetypal story about who we are as human beings. Told and re-told throughout the ages, from mythology and scriptures to Hollywood movies, these are the stories of our lives. And, by paying attention to...

Spirit + Ritual = Spiritual • In older, tribal cultures, as well as modern secret societies and military groups, a candidate has to go through an initiation before being accepted in the group. Most are difficult, yet possible to accomplish. Some are even more severe, which is a way of weeding out those who are not capable of what is required for membership. Yet no matter how physical and outer the...

No one here gets out alive (Jim Morrison). Death ends a life but not a relationship. It is also an inner experience, both for the one who passes on and those left behind. I have assisted two very close people through the dying process in the last year, and have some thoughts and experiences to share. Death is most often an awkward or unpopular thing to talk about, but it is an important part of li...

Just like the Little Pig who built his house out of brick and mortar, we need to build an inner structure that is strong and secure. Freemasonry uses the metaphor of constructing physical buildings for our inner lives. Our inner structure must be well-designed, built on a stable foundation, level and true, and designed for the purposes of our lives. *I am not a Freemason and am only using the meta...

ChatGPT and other A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) platforms making news lately. While A.I. might be powerful and potentially dangerous, the really frightening part is that we seem so eager to give up our natural intelligence for an artificial one. Before the industrial and information revolutions, we relied mostly on our human capacity to intuit, observe and inspire. When tech tools were limited, w...

There are only two days of the week you never have to worry about - yesterday and tomorrow. We only really live in the present, but can often find ourselves mired in the past or grappled with the future. Like Ram Dass said: Be Here Now. There is power in the present. We can recognize dangers long before they become a big problem. And see opportunities that otherwise would have been missed by not b...

What are your core values? Having a strong center, like the trunk of a tree, will strengthen and balance everything else. In exercise, developing a strong core will help make the rest of you strong, resilient and balanced. In Judo, martial arts and other sports, keeping your center is vital to success. Same with the Inner Life. We are confronted constantly with emotions and distractions that can m...

Often we turn to government and elected leaders to solve our problems. While there are many things a government can do quite well, like the military, police and fire departments, and infrastructure, there are so many things it can't. Prohibition altered the Constitution of the United States to make drinking illegal, because people could not regulate themselves. This did not work and actually lead...

With all the recent UFO and UAP sightings and publicity lately, I take a look back at what Dr. Carl Jung wrote about the flying saucers in the late 1950s. Jung didn't doubt the existence of the saucers, nor the truthfulness of the eyewitness accounts, but instead focused on the psychological implications - both personal and collective. Dr. Carl Sagan said that either we are alone in the universe o...

The metal Alchemists of long ago sought to change lead into gold by subjecting it to heat, chemicals, distillation and various experiments in the laboratory. We also do this in the kitchen when we mix flour, sugar, egg, water and a few other things, subject them to heat, and wind up with a cake. Same with the inner life. Dr. Carl Jung drew a parallel between these alchemical operations and the psy...

When you reply to the people and events in our lives, are you reacting or responding. A reaction is an automated reply, like a knee-jerk reflex, usually without any thought. It can also be a habit of speech, triggered by a stimulus. But if you respond, there is thought involved, and at least a second of two of time that allows a more present, more useful reply.  In an emergency, there is no t...

The great love stories from religious scriptures, mythology, movies and fairy tales are actually metaphors for our inner lives. It is that beauty within ourselves that is sleeping and needs to be awakened. We are under a spell of materialism that has made us beastly, which only beauty can conquer. The quest for the Holy Grail is an inner journey to find and recapture that better part of ourselves....

Sabotage is usually an attempt to disrupt or derail something that is deemed negative. This is a solution. But when we 'self-sabotage', it is most often something that we DO want, yet we have this urge to dismantle it. So how is self-sabotage a solution? If we want to disrupt a negative part of our personality, that would be called self-improvement. Yet we hear so many stories, as well as our own,...

Faith is the belief in things unseen. In this podcast, I am not talking about 'faith' as being a style or sect of religion, nor a belief in a supreme being. These are great topics I hope to cover soon. Here, I am only talking about the hidden possibilities that lurk in the unseen world. When we rely too much on our senses, our understanding or what we believe, we can be missing so much more. To cu...