Spiritual Illuminations with Jeff Carreira

In this teaching given during a recent retreat, Jeff Carreira shares his thoughts about the role of spiritual practice in these times, and how we might move beyond the challenges circumstances humanity currently finds itself in. His unique perspective and own conviction offers tremendous hope for whats possible for all of us in radically transforming ways.

In this dialog singer songwriter and kirtan musician, David Newman speaks with Jeff Carreira about his inner relationship with his guru, – the late Neem Karoli Baba and how he went from law school, to starting a yoga studio, to singing kirtan. As the discussion progresses we compare the Bhakti path of love with the Jnana path of wisdom and what happens when we come to the true end of seeking...

Timothy Morton of Rice University is Speculative Realist. That means he is a philosopher who believes in the power of wild speculation about the nature of reality. Morton is driven by his concerns around global warming and he believes that the solutions to our ecological crisis will never be found within the bounds of normal thinking. We need to learn to see beyond our current mental attitudes and...

The philosophical history of the past few hundred years reveals how cultures revolve between periods of progressive growth followed by times of Romantic upheaval. These romantic revolutions call for a return to more traditional sources of meaning and value. The original romantic movement was born in the late 18th Century in response to the failure of the French Revolution and the hardships of the...

In this short but potent teaching, Jeff Carreira responds to a retreatant’s question ‘What about Love? Is Love a quality of existence or awareness?” Transcript “Love is not a quality of existence or awareness. Love, existence, awareness and life are all words signifying the same thing. To turn any of these into a quality of any of the others is diminish both. Love is not a qualit...

Spiritual Teacher and Non-Dual Psychotherapist Jeffrey Eisen talks with Jeff Carreira about spiritual evolution as a process that begins with coming home to non-dual awareness. ​All life ‘knows by Being’ (aperceptual consciousness), while the human brain has evolved to ‘know about life’ as well (perceptual consciousness). This evolution has layered itself upon our foundational ‘knowing by Being’ u...

In this teaching given during a recent virtual retreat titled ‘From Practice to Attainment’ , Jeff Carreira reveals the difference between teaching to the path and teaching to fruition. He provides a taste of the fruition path of meditating as the truth of who we are and resting in awareness beyond everything else. The ‘From Practice to Attainment’ retreat was held in the M...

Bonnitta Roy, founder of Alderlore Insight Center, associate editor & Integral Review Journal and program coordinator for the Masters in Consciousness Studies The Graduate Institute, talks with Jeff Carreira about Jeff’s book ‘The Soul of a New Self: Embracing the Future of Being Human’ . This dialog is part of a five part series that was conducted in 2015 when the book was...

Chela Rhea Harper, professional musician, creativity coach and meditation teacher, talks with Jeff Carreira about creative flow and how she discovered the secret to letting go into our inherent creative genius. Along the way they discuss spiritual awakening, the conditions that lead to flow states, and the creative drive of the universe. As a touring musician from 2012 – 2016, Chela playing...

In this teaching given during a 4 part awakening course, Jeff Carreira reveals how spiritual liberation radically changes your relationship to life. He shares how the spiritual liberation you’ve won plays a crucial role in the larger evolution of human consciousness and the transformation of life on this planet. “As soon as you are available – ready, willing, open, receptive – believe...

Mary Adams talks with Jeff Carreira about the time she spent with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in Mumbai, India in 1973. Mary had the auspicious good luck to find herself in the great sages company before his spiritual classic I Am That had been published in the west. For nearly three weeks she walked with Nisargadatta through the crowded streets of Mumbai (then called Bombay) and met with later in hi...

In this teaching given during a recent retreat, Jeff Carreira introduces Ramana Maharshi and what the great sage taught about sleep during meditation. Jeff goes on to describe his own struggles with sleep in mediation. The episode ends with a dramatic story of how those struggles came to an end with an experience that revealed the underlying consciousness that is always awake even during sleep. Th...

Bruce Sanguin, author of The Emerging Church: a model for change and a map for renewal and a United Church minister and a pioneer of evolutionary spirituality, talks with Jeff Carreira about Jeff’s book ‘The Soul of a New Self: Embracing the Future of Being Human’ . This dialog is part of a five part series that was conducted in 2015 when the book was published, in which Jeff spe...

In this dharma talk given during a recent retreat Jeff Carreira speaks about the necessity of question the identity of being the mediator performing the practice. We habitually see ourselves as the self that meditates. The one born on our birthday that has our name. In truth there is a much bigger consciousness that is the true source of our awareness and ultimately it is that awareness that medit...

Photo Credit: John Baker and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in Jenner, California, during a three-week retreat in the spring of 1971. [photo courtesy of John Baker] John Baker, one of the editors who worked closely with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the writing of Trungpa’s spiritual masterpiece Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism talks openly and honestly with Jeff Carreira about his deep devotion to...

In this talk, originally given live, Jeff Carreira speaks about Radical Inclusivity. Radical Inclusivity can be thought of as the discovery of an inside that has no outside. It is also a way of accessing and understanding the spiritual experience more often called non-duality. Non-Duality means literally not-two. It is the experience of Oneness, or what the American philosopher Charles Sanders Pei...

John Walker, independent scholar, occultist and poet talks with Jeff Carreira about the science of spirit that was developed by the late 19th century occultist and philosopher Rudolf Steiner. As a graduate student Steiner was assigned the task of sorting through Goethe’s scientific papers that had been all but forgotten. Steiner’s close reading of the great poets scientific work dramatically influ...

In this experiential seminar, originally given live, Jeff Carreira speaks about William James, Jeffrey Kripal and the history of paranormal experience. William James was the first president of the American Psychical Society who spent a great deal of time studying supernatural abilities. Mainstream American culture today tends to assume that paranormal experiences are fringe events experienced by s...

Dorothy Walters, author of Unmasking the Rose: A Record of a Kundalini Initiation talks with Jeff Carreira about the awakening power of Kundalini. Dorothy has been studying Kundalini and working to support the growth of others for over three decades. Here Jeff and Dorothy discuss the reality of Kundalini and its value for awakening and the challenges of working with this kind of energy. They also...

In this mind-bending philosophy talk, Jeff Carreira flips our most fundamental ideas about ourselves upside down. We are taught to imagine that we were born a somebody who was given a name. In this talk you will see that it just might be the case that your name is just a word that has been wrapped itself around a set of beliefs about being someone. In this talk you will see how the practice of med...

Jeffrey Kripal, author and professor of philosophy and religious thought at Rice University talks with Jeff Carreira about his ground breaking work in Religious Studies. Following in the tradition of William James, Kripal is looking for spiritual illumination at the edges of the main stream. Kripal recognizes that the status quo resists new insights and unusual experiences and keeps them from bein...

In this talk given during a teaching event in New York City, Jeff Carreira speaks about how conditioned we are to see ourselves as separate entities wedded to physical bodies. He then guides a thought experiment that calls our fundamental sense of self into question and opens up a vision of our true cosmic being. “I am not the kind of teacher who wants to say that our individuated self is unreal,...

Nora Bateson, award-winning filmmaker, writer, facilitator and educator, and President of the International Bateson Institute, talks with Jeff Carreira about her profound work aimed at supporting people into a new conception of reality and a new consciousness. Expanding on the work of her father the brilliant 20th Century philosopher Gregory Bateson, Nora is seeking to discover how human beings ca...