Western Baul Podcast Series

There are aspects of suffering that may not be necessary, such as “luxury suffering.” Luxury suffering may be defined as self-observation while judging ourselves. Judgment can be positive or negative. Trying to avoid things or make them better is suffering. Constantly watching the news can keep suffering in place. Without seeing the extreme state of the world so regularly in the media, we might be...

There is a distinction between what we would die for and what is worth living for. What we would die for brings us to reflect on something beyond this life. To consider this requires us to know and accept three things: our bodies are going to die, we are all connected, and we make a difference. Aging brings an imperative with it. Our society is uncomfortable with death. Keeping death from children...

If we put aside concepts, we really don’t know what a tree is. It’s a mystery of creation. The tree of life is a universal archetypal symbol. African, Celtic, Norse, and Cabala trees of life are discussed. Trees are a portal into appreciation of life and nature. Walking in a forest, we can feel sacred space. The decimation of trees and forests is also heartbreaking. It’s important to connect to an...

In spiritual practice, quietude is a deeply desirable, nourishing nutrient. Most practitioners find quieting the mind to be very difficult. It takes a lot of stamina and strength to stop ourselves from being habitually drawn to the stimulus of contention or disruption through distractions such as the news and social media. We can start with basic practices. The human being craves constant stimulus...

Every time we tell a story, something new can enter our heart. Sharing a story with others can help us regain a piece of our humanity. Being in the present and letting go of the past can be a spiritual ideal, but if we trace back things that happened we may find buried aspects of ourselves. A spiritual act can pave over the past. Rick tells stories of his experience with recapitulation, of being a...

As a culture, we are disconnected from our bodies. In school, we learn to meet standards outside of ourselves and to listen less and less to our bodies. Messages of a hidden curriculum tell us that the body should be productive, emotions should be controlled, rest must be earned, and time is more important than natural rhythms. A controlled body cannot be a sensing body. Sensation is a way to conn...

Creativity is going into the unknown with intention. Two “wings” of creativity are passion and play. Some people have titles for their role in creating, such as painter, writer, sculptor. Art connects us to who we really are; it’s an expression of our essence. Creativity is a purpose of the universe. It isn’t a luxury; it’s a primary function of consciousness itself. The big picture is that our li...

We move through cycles of death and rebirth through the entirety of our lives. Walking side by side with grief doesn’t mean being condemned to a life without joy; it is to live with the bittersweet truth of impermanence. Depression can arise due to unexpressed, undigested grief. It is a holy time when things decay and break down. Sorrow is part of the Earth’s great cycles. It can connect us to the...

What’s seen as inspiring in the world are ego’s triumphs. But there’s another kind of inspiration we can feel when we hear about people who give themselves for others. We can also be inspired by those who exhibit essential qualities on the spiritual path. We innately feel an urge to embody qualities that feed a higher purpose. We can work to develop a “Work I” by observing ourselves and not lettin...

A teacher's relationship to power can create a lot of difficulty. Just because a teacher has a profound spiritual awakening does not mean he or she is psychologically mature or integrated or has knowledge about everything. Even with a problematic spiritual teacher, students still find their way. There are common threads of things that go wrong even in spiritual groups free of corruption or scandal...

Seven of the aphorisms of Gurdjieff are considered in this third talk on the subject. Teaching refers to the ideas we draw from, while the path is our individual road. No two paths are the same, even when they emanate from a common source. The Fourth Way, which the Gurdjieff Work has been called, refers to the premise that we are three-centered beings. The work of the fakir focuses on mastery of t...

Rhythm, ritual and reverie are interconnected. They are interwoven in a way that has invoked an experience of the sacred as long as humans have been around. Rhythm gives birth to cycles of becoming and ending. We can align ourselves to existence by paying attention to life's rhythms, which bring us to feel our connection and place in the weave of everything. In ordinary life, rhythm shows up in ou...

A look into the union of the Two Truths, absolute and relative: the two that are not two. How all appearances and phenomena and all beings are this union, in every instant. How mind of separation, dualistic consciousness, arises with the erroneous conceptualization of “self” or “selfness” in anything, including us…and how this is continuously generating samsara, the realms of wandering in sufferin...

Most postures are mechanical and are unconsciously accompanied by a mood, which invokes attitude. The Divine feeds on a very fine vibratory energy or food. The Work teaches that there are three being-foods: physical food, air, and impressions. Everything in the world is an energetic configuration vibrating at a certain rate. The lower the vibration the more the appearance of solidity. It is possib...

Self-hatred is characterized by a critical voice that goes beyond constructive evaluation. It operates visibly and invisibly and can be transmitted between generations. It doesn’t work to try to paste self-love on top of self-hatred. There’s a spiritual idea that the universe, including negative manifestation, exists for God’s entertainment. Forms of self-hatred may involve high achievement, roman...

Longevity has become an obsession and looking young mythologized. Tasks of the first and second halves of life are considered. The first is about establishing identity, security, and sex and gender orientation. Five tasks of the second half of life are discussed: emptying, taking care of unfinished business, making a sacrament of the present moment, cultivating elder wisdom, and building spiritual...

We may take life personally, but larger forces that affect us are at play. Astrological imagery describes what is happening in the world. In Jyotish astrology, Rahu is a being associated with deception, confusion, and inflation of power and ego. The influence of Rahu is active now and is always difficult but can be useful for spiritual practice due to the necessity it creates to work with energies...

We all have reference points for being obsessed with something or someone so that everything else is obscured. Obsession for God is an affair of the heart; it’s not about the intensity of practice. Obsession may be necessary at some point since only it will get us where the path leads. Coming to the point of not having anything else to live for is at the heart of being obsessed with God. The wakin...

How do people relate to a tradition once the teacher is gone and there is no authorized leader to carry it forward? An important distinction is that a tradition is intended to serve the Work and that practitioners are not obligated to serve the formality of the tradition without deviating from a formula. An element of continuity of wisdom is willingness to embrace a degree of risk. In some communi...

"Don’t Know, Go Straight" is a teaching that came from the Korean Zen master, Soen Sa Nim. We have two minds: thinking mind, and “before thinking” mind which is without thought (Don’t Know Mind). This is the mind of the moment, our true nature. Thinking mind, from which problems arise, obscures Don’t Know Mind. Yet, we need thinking mind to do all kinds of things. Our limitations are often mental...

We can look on irritation as a reality check since reality inevitably falls short of our expectations. Irritation can be destructive to spaces and relationships when it becomes anger. It is a gift in that it can show us something about ourselves and remind us of our intention to work. There is a lot of energy associated with irritation which can go elsewhere when recognized. Irritation can be trig...

The heart of transition is navigating liminal space. This in-between place offers an entry point into reality, a portal into deeper relationship with oneself and the Divine. We are continually in the process of transition. Each transition is an invitation to awaken to possibility, to consciously go with life rather than resist it. In the Vedic tradition, tirtha is a Sanskrit term for a crossing-ov...

"Live and learn" is part of the design of a human being which comes naturally to us as children. Messages we receive in our family and society lead us to abandon our instinctual freedom and to develop habits about how to be. But the ability to live and learn remains dormant, and we may learn how necessary a spiritual path is and how we need to make it our own in order to realize its possibility. T...

Living a fluid life is about engaging what life gives us. As we walk through life, we’re walking through the movie we’re creating through our projections, which make life appear solid. But life or reality is fluid and dynamic, changing every moment even if we don’t usually notice. The source of the effort to confirm our solidity is an uncertainty about whether we exist. We use references points ou...

Lectio Divina (“divine reading” in Latin) is a centuries-old tradition of being inspired by reflecting on the text of a scripture. It may also be considered in terms of “reading” creation and what Thomas Merton called the “calligraphy of nature.” Merton (1915-1968) was a Catholic monastic and mystic whose writing impacted vast numbers of Christians by introducing them to a perspective on Eastern t...