Podcast appearances and mentions of bhagavan das

The only way to fix anything is to say, "I Love You" to the Divine.  Look past your intentions.  Past what you 'think' is here,  to the Sound of Silence, the Sound of Grace,  of Reality.  I Love You I Am You nik  Support the show: ▶▶https://www.patreon.com/goodmornings __________________________________________ Today's Quotes:    "All day and night, music, a quiet, bright reedsong. If it fades, we fade." - Rumi  "The Long Drought Is Over My Beloved has come home with the rains, And the fire of longing is doused. Now is the time for singing, the time of union. At the first thunderclap, Even the peacocks open their tails with pleasure and dance. Giridhara is in my courtyard, and my wandering heart has returned. Like Hilies that blossom under the full moon's light, Iopen to him in this rain: every pore of my body is cooled. Mira's separation and torment are over. He who comes to those who love has remembered his promise." - Mirabai  "When you say I and I say that is the same I." Jai Ram Ransom, It All Abides in Love  "How can someone outside me be able to be in me? Only if the are me. So who was I? I asked myself these questions and came to understand that this is the reality of the atman, the Self. And it's the ser that everyone has. It's my true Self and your true Self- the individual, inner Self. This atman is one with God. It is and partakes of the nature of God, and it is that place inside of you and me that is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. It is the omkar of the nada, the voice of God, the hum of creation. When I listen to the music inside my head, that fine ringing in my ears known as the nada (which everybody hears is the omkar. The omkar is what our soul rides on. It is the sound current of God; this is the sound of the ingoing and outgoing breath. The atman dwells in the heart as the sound of "Om." When I'm very till, in solitude, when there are no other sounds present, I hear the ound of Om." - Bhagavan Das, 'It's Here Now, Are You?' "Leave aside every other thought, Just say Hari! Hari! Have faith in Him and cross the sea of the world." - Anandamayi Ma  "In prayer, we rest in God's being, in praise, we celebrate God's being." -The Heart of Prayer, Rupert Spira  "Ananda, the pleasure and bliss of Consciousness, will arise in you like an atomic explosion, and you will see how the whole wide world is a manifestation of That." - Nisargadatta Maharaj   

To join weekly mediations on Wednesday evenings at 6:30pm EST, please visit www.wisdomseat.org, or email: info@thewisdomseat.org. Inspired by Tony Robbins, AH Almaas, Aesop fables, the Buddha, the Dalai Lama, Jack Kornfield, Robert Thurman, Jung, Joseph Goldstien, Duncan Trussell, Ragu Markus, Gabor Mate, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Maharaji, Ram Dass, Joan Halifax, Michael Carrol, Judy Lief, SokukoJi, Krishna Das, Nina Rao, Bhagavan Das, Allan Watts, Radhanath swami, Kaustubha Das, Raghunath Das, Sadhguru, Rumi, Jesus, St. Francis, Mother Teresa, Teresa of Avila, Mohammed, Moses, Pema Chodron, Thich Naht Hanh, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Mooji, and my Mother; Amy Burns and my father; Jim Burns.  Audiobook.  Mature listeners only (18+).

Mantra: Protect Her = Protector.  Inspired by Spring Washam, Nina Rao, Mirabai Starr, Lama Tsultrim Allione, Joan Halifax, Robert Svoboda, Harriet Tubman, the book "King, Warrior, Magician, Lover," Robert Moore, Douglas Gillette, Rizwan, Ram Dass, Duncan Trussell, Swami Satchidananda, Krishna Das, Ragu Markus, Jai Uttal, Bhagavan Das, Jai Dev, Bob Thurman, Govinda Das, Arjun Bruggeman, David Nictern, Joe Rogan, Dave Chappell, Sadguru, Ryan Holiday, George Amoss Jr, Walt Witman, Charles Bukowski, Jane Goodall, Mark Whitwell, and Sokuzan.  Audiobook.  Mature listeners only (18+).

Inspired by the Maya, Yoruba, Spring Washam (@springwasham), Alberto (@albertovilloldo_thefourwinds), Ramgiri, Ram Dass (@babaramdass), and Bhagavan Das (@baba_bhagavan_das). Audiobook. Mature listeners only (18+).

Lama Tsultrim Allione is one of the few female Lamas in the Buddhist tradition today. She shares her fascinating & unique journey of traveling to India & Tibet as a teen, living  with American yogi Ram Dass, the eminent Harvard psychologist and psychedelic pioneer and ultimately, by the age of 22, becoming the first American ever to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun. Discussed in this profound episode are reflections about: learning to become Conscious of Consciousness, Buddhists notions of the gender spectrum and the importance of the female perspective balanced with the male perspective in all arenas including spirituality. Also detailed is the Lama's 5 step Tibetan Buddhist practice she has modernized to support Westerners working with & overcoming their “demons” such as addictions, fears and disorders. This powerful episode is punctuated with an uplifting Buddhist practice that can be listened to again and again. SHOW NOTES: A Modern Mystic is someone who can live in this world at its speed but maintain a deep practice so that their presence in this world can then be of benefit to others. Lama shares her astonishing life's story and speaks of her unique path of traveling to India and Tibet as a teen where she lived with American yogis, Bhagavan Das and Dr. Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass), the eminent Harvard psychologist and psychedelic pioneer. She then hitchhiked across northern India to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama in  Dharamshala and ultimately, by the age of 22, became the first American ever to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun. One revelation she had was the inquiry, how much was she not noticing because she was moving too fast and making too much noise? Discussed is the idea of Awareness opening up into larger Awareness and Conscious becomes aware of Consciousness during meditation. Figures W.B. Yeats, an Irish Mystic poet and early writer on Yoga, Paul Brunton are mentioned. Lama was suited for and committed to the teachings, but not the monastic lifestyle. Then she was presented with Koan (a contemplation), “How could she maintain depth of practice, commitment to the spiritual path and deepen this path all while being a mother.” Listen to your intuition and to what's calling you, even if it doesn't make sense. Often those inklings are connected to past lives. Listen to what's inside.  How would spirituality be different if it was by women, for women and would it be different? Women's Spirituality movement in the early 80's is discussed and the recognition that women's stories weren't there nor were there spiritual paths for women by women. We have them by men for men, and then women get to participate in what they are allowed and not allowed to do. It's all controlled i.e. who can become a priest, and not a priest. You can be in a female body and feel your dominant energy is male or vice versa. Gender is at the highest level of Tibetan Buddhism spirituality, irrelevant. Lama shares the story of the female Buddha, Tara. In many Eastern traditions, particularly Tantric Buddhism, there is a lot of fluidity with deities. Deities are embodiments of enlightened energies. In some deity practices, a man might visualize himself as a female deity or vice versa or in some practices, you visualize both in Union. There's a kind of gender fluidity and philosophical understanding that there is no gender at the Absolute level of reality, it's a construct. Buddhism gives us both understandings: there is gender and no gender. As feminists, we need equality in decision making and equal representation, as females do see things differently and we need that equally to the male perspective.  Unpacked is the idea of our Shadows which in the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Chod are called “Demons.” Lama speaks of her lineage and teacher Machig Labdron whose practices she's modernized in her brilliant book, Feeding Your Demons. Our “demons” are our present preoccupations, the issues in our lives blocking our experience of Freedom. Our demons might come from the conflicts we have with our lover, anxiety we feel when we fly, or the discomfort we feel when we look at ourselves in the mirror. Fear of failure could be your particular demon, or addiction to tobacco, alcohol, drugs, pornography, or money. We might have a demon that makes us fear abandonment or a demon that causes us to hurt the ones we love. A person with an eating disorder might have a demon demanding huge amounts of sweet or fatty food. The demon of anorexia tells us that we have failed if we eat and that we will never be thin enough. A fear demon might be telling us we can't go up in high buildings or take a walk in the dark. The word for Demons is “Mara” which is anything that blocks up from our own freedom and liberation. Anything that keeps us away from the present moment. She discusses her five step process she developed to make accessible the practice of 11th Century Machig Labdron. She details this Shamanic practice and how your body becomes food for these various obstacles. She realized this could be a foreign idea for a westerner to do and thus she teaches it in a way that's more practical and useful.  Feeding not fighting is a feminine approach; to talk, to nurture and to incorporate the enemy.  What we resist, persist. It's a psychospiritual practice, a blending of East and West. There is still a great need for the fierce feminine.  Men can be so scared of women's fierceness. Incorporate the fierce, wise feminine that has been taken away from us all. Women have been kept out of religious hierarchies, even in Bushism, with few exceptions. Lama Taultrim shares about her path of emphasizing the feminine and her journey trying to decide if talking about the feminine was really important. She shares how the events of 9/11 solidified this path for her in her mind's eye. We have a problem in this country and in all world religions where women are vacant from the table of leadership. Women often tend towards more talking and working things out. If you birth a child, you know more about what goes into a human life and would be more hesitant to go to war. Lama punctuates this conversation with the stirring Buddhist practice of “Sharing the Merit.” taramandala.org F-book & IG: Lama Tsultrim  Check Lama Tsultrim out every Sunday at 9am PST for “Lama Live”  Lehigh Valley Speaking engagement on 10/27/22 @ 7pm in Baker Hall: https://zoellner.cas.lehigh.edu/content/littner-memorial-lecture-presents-lama-tsultrim-allione?fbclid=IwAR10dtAcqJSi72DD989xarLuoMHQo71UTpzAGBk-Or7JIv9VNuzS6UXcBJM  

I love reading biographies you can get the whole world of someone's life from reading their biographies and there are always so many juicy takeaways. "Maharaj-ji told me to be like Gandhi. Now I realized that meant fully participating in the human condition. But what did that look like? Others were better trained to alleviate suffering, like nurses, doctors, and political activists. They manifested compassion or fought injustice in their own ways. As I pondered Maharaj-ji's instructions, I realized my ability is to serve as a spiritual friend to help others see what lies at the root of suffering and help them to awaken. I could help people get free to serve others." "Hold on to nothing." MAHARAJ-JI "Contentment is a practice. It's not a feeling of accomplishment from doing something. Contentment is just being complete in the moment. In the moment, there is just presence, no future or past, just happy to be here in the moment. Contentment is an attitude of the soul." "Gandhi said, “When you surrender completely to God as the only Truth worth having, you find yourself in the service of all that exists. It becomes your joy and recreation. You never tire of serving others.” Billions of acts create suffering in the world—acts of ignorance, greed, violence. But in the same way, each act of caring—the billion tiny ways that we offer compassion, wisdom, and joy to one another—serves to preserve and heal our world. When I help someone change their perspective on their individual problems, I also change society. Meher Baba said, “Love is like a disease. Those who don't have it catch it from those who do.” Love is transmitted from Maharaj-ji's heart to my heart to your heart and to the next heart, one to another." "Love the best you can at any moment. Don't harsh yourself—it can be tricky for everyone having this dual citizenship, of the biographical and the divine. You're not alone; we are in this together, connected, all one." "As a teenager, I used to hide on the stairs to listen when Dad led Brandeis board meetings in our living room. I would overhear how they went about hiring and firing professors. I understood then that academia was clearly about who you knew, not what you knew. The power is wielded by money and big names, professors who get grants and have written the most books or papers. I didn't have the books or brilliant research at Harvard, but I did know the power of connections. I was well-spoken and charismatic, and I was good at dropping a Freudian reference or two to impress my colleagues." It's interesting to see how Western society sees success especially working and interacting with so many business people and you notice there are tons who seem happy and those who have the money and you can tell they aren't as happy or content with life. It certainly makes you think and reflect a bit.  "We stayed in pilgrim rest houses called dharmsalas, some put up by the government, with concrete rooms and wooden beds. At first it was an adventure, and the spartan conditions didn't bother me. But it was very hot, and as the days went by, I needed to distract myself from the blisters and bad food. I tried to entertain myself narrating my past exploits to Bhagavan Das. I thought he would be amused, but he was completely uninterested. When I told stories, he replied, “Just be here now.” I was thrown back into myself. Just be. Here. Now." "Suddenly, sitting there, it occurs to me that if Maharaj-ji knows my thoughts about my mother, then he knows all my other thoughts too—including all the things I'm most ashamed of. My bisexual double life. My intellectual pretense. My anger at my mother. I can't bear that he knows all this. These are things I keep carefully hidden. I'm convinced that if people were to know them, they wouldn't love me. I'm sitting on the grass looking down, thinking about all these things I'm so ashamed of that I don't want anyone to know. He's sitting just above me, on his plank bed. I know he knows every one of these thoughts. He's talking to other people as if nothing out of the ordinary is going on. Finally, I summon the courage to look up at him. He's looking back down at me from only a few inches away—and all I see in his face is total love. I know he knows all these things I'm so ashamed of. He knows, but instead of criticism, all I feel is great love coming from him. He's not judging me or mocking me or laughing at me. He's just talking to people. I look up at him, and he looks down at me, and I realize he's just loving me with pure unconditional love." "In the West the idea of surrendering to a guru carries negative connotations. It implies giving up power to another human being. But that internal surrender is really about letting go of the things that keep you separate, your own fetters. You surrender to something greater than yourself, to a love beyond form." "Maharaj-ji kept giving me these experiences with power until I saw it was love, not power, that matters."  

This is the first of a few interviews Mitchell did with Bhagavan Das in the NYC studio. Bhagavan Das' story is remarkable and shared with you here. In 1963 at the age of 18, Bhagavan Das left California and journeyed solo through Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East, eventually arriving in India. He was the first American to live in the jungle of the Himalayas as a hermit-sadhu. He was given the holy name of Ram by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He then came to meet Swami Chaitanya Prakashananda Tirth who gave him tapas to pray for God's Grace. In 1965, after a year of fasting, prayer and intense purification, Bhagavan Das met his Sat Guru, the Mahasiddha Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaji) who he lived with side by side for many years. Maharaji sent him to Anandamayi Ma to receive initiation from the Divine Mother. Later, during his time with the Tibetan yogis, he was the first westerner to meet and live with Lama Kalu Rinpoche, the guru of the 16th Karmapa. He gave Bhagavan Das the Mahamudra transmission. Bhagavan Das received the Clear Light of Primordial Awareness from His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche and then the Vajra Yogini transmission directly from the 16th Karmapa in Sikkim. He lived with Yogi Chen who explained all the details to him in English in his hermitage in Kalimpong. When on pilgrimage to the holy Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu, Bhagavan Das met Richard Alpert who became Ram Dass after Bhagavan Das brought him to Maharaji. Then, Bhagavan Das was sent to Amma in the 1980s, who saved him again from the ravages of the world. The Grace of his Sat Guru Maharaji led Bhagavan Das HOME to the Divine Mother in the form of Amulya Maa, his precious Beloved Wife, who is always guiding him on the true path of Bodhichitta with her crystal clarity, ancient wisdom and pure Love. If you'd like to see more on an array of subjects like this, join our Newsletter at www.abetterworld.net. There are podcasts and videos which can keep you inspired and educated for years to come. At our Store, you'll also find one-of-a-kind items like a compact FAR Infra-Red Sauna, high-quality, low-cost nutritional supplements & micro-greens and therapeutic mushrooms in capsules, an In Harmony, vibro-acoustic Sound Lounge & the Brain-Tap for sound healing to the max, Mind-Movies for re-programming your brain (& Life), all the way to eliminating credit card and mortgage debt. Or interested in a Conscious Community Network across the planet? That too is available. Just visit Store for these & more. And if you haven't already, won't you subscribe to A Better World's Youtube channel? Love to have you part of our community: https://www.youtube.com/c/abetterworldtvshow --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/abwmitchellrabin/support

Today's Quotes:"I live and move in and by the Holy Spirit.I have Christ mind and vision.I see God in everyone and everything, because I feel It in myself.I am the child of a rich Father and I have come Home.I let God live my life. "  -from my iPhone notes in January 2018 "You have to want God the way a drowning man wants air." -Bhagavan Das "The Saint who is in this State, sees both the reality and the unreality, but he only accepts the reality."  - Ramayana "Rather than seeing all the different forms of jewelry, see only gold." The Yoga Vasistha "Read a little,meditate more,think of God all the time."-Yogananada Today's Goals and Practice:1. Start with Love2. Stay with Love 3. End with LoveRead about Love, sing to Love, sit with Love, walk through Love, breathe in Love, meet only Love, be Love.  When anxiety or any inner disturbance comes that seemingly distracts you from the truth of this Love, you (1) acknowledge it, (2) feel it, and (3) find Love in it.  You feel the disturbance at the same time as you feel the Love (see the Ramayana quote above).  You keep returning to Love like it's the only thing that matters, and It's the only thing that will.  I Love you,Nik  

Having recently finished the magnificent book It's Here Now, Are You? by Bhagavan Das I feel myself profoundly inspired. Are you feeling bogged down by the Material Malaise? I know I'm over it. How do we make the mundane, divine? Whether it's gathering flowers for your shrine or saying a mantra in synchrony with your breath, don't be afraid to Get Weird! It's all here and you are IT! Enjoy!Purchase It's Here Now, Are You? by Bhagavan DasJoin the Power Tribe on www.patreon.com/edsbritton get a BONUS episode of The Eben Flow podcast each week! As well as, more great meditation, movement and mindset content. Would love to see you there!Can't sleep? Try Magnesium Breakthrough from BiOptimizers! Magnesium is a potent mineral for total wellbeing, which begins with better sleep. Head over to www.magbreakthrough.com/ebenflow for 10% off your next order!Subscribe to Gus's newsletter here: realitynow.substack.com Get bonus content on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

During COVID Acarya Chirainjivii has "no time to bake bread" as he's in the medical profession yet he still takes the time to nurture his, and others, spiritual and musical growth doing Kiirtan and Prabhat Samgiita. He ends with singing a beautiful kiirtan by Bhagavan Das and himself.

Lama Tsultrim Allione rejoins Raghu to share rare, behind the scenes, Ram Dass stories, and explore how to work with afflictive emotions by feeding your demons, rather than running from them.One of Mindrolling's favorite reoccurring guests, Lama Tsultrim Allione, returns to join Raghu for an illuminating, fun, and healing conversation. Beginning the talk by sharing exceptionally rare stories of Ram Dass, involving Bhagavan Das and Allen Ginsberg; they naturally flow into potent Maharajji lilas before subtly weaving the conversation into the main topic of the podcast: feeding your demons. Laying down a path away from polarization, and into the oneness of interconnected love, Lama Tsultrim and Raghu brainstorm how to cultivate a new paradigm of being, starting from the inside out.

Ram Dass ventures out of his comfort zone and follows Bhagavan Das on a transformative journey through India, leading to a very special meeting at the Kainchi ashram. He tells about adopting the robes of the holy men of India. Quickly Ram Dass learns of the reverence this new role brings and struggles with accepting this treatment. Subscribe for weekly new content: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-fyzHZmp9BiOuOdS7dswFA Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UniversalWisdomFB/ Podcast: https://anchor.fm/universalwisdom

Jamie Catto is an author, film-maker and musician running transformational workshops and events to reclaim all the treasure we edited away into the shadows and facilitate everyone daring to be more real, more fallible, more tender, more intimate. Jamie Catto is a former and founding member of Faithless. He was the ballad singer/songwriter, and became Art Director and Video Director of the band before leaving in 1999 to form the double-Grammy nominated, global music and film project 1 Giant Leap. His last album with Faithless was Sunday 8PM. He is also known as a photographer, script editor and creative catalyst. When Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman formed 1 Giant Leap, they toured to such nations as Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Uganda, India, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, America and Europe, equipped solely with a digital video camera, a laptop and a vision to explore ‘The Unity in the Diversity'. They released the first ‘1 Giant Leap' in 2002. (It was nominated for 2 Grammys in 2003, sold over 300 thousand albums, and won numerous awards globally). They collaborated with such artists as Dennis Hopper, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Stipe, Bono, Susan Sarandon, k.d. Lang, Tom Robbins, Dido, Brian Eno, Tim Robbins, Daniel Lanois, Yoko Ono, J. P. Donleavy, Naomi Klein, Oumou Sangare, Billy Connolly, Baaba Maal, Rokia Traore, DBC Pierre, Neneh Cherry, Robbie Williams, Lila Downs, Bob Geldof, Neale Donald Walsch, Stephen Fry, Gita Mehta, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Speech, Mahotella Queens, Michael Franti etc. In 2004, Simon Fuller and 19 Entertainment backed the production of the 2nd 1 Giant Leap Film, TV Series and CD, “What About Me?”1 Giant Leap finished their second film / album ‘What About Me?' released on region 2 DVD June 2008 in the UK and won Grand Jury Best Documentary at Red Rock Film Festival at first screening in America at the end of 2008, has received numerous recognitions and additional screenings including a special screening at the DocMiami International Film Festival in 2010. (The making of What About Me? TV series screens on Channel 4 this November 2010.) They travelled across 50 countries and 5 continents recording music and interviews What About Me? website It features Tim Robbins, Daniel Lanois, KD Lang, Susan Sarandon, Zap Mama, Bob Geldof, Noam Chomsky, Billy Connolly, Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, Neale Donald Walcsh, Courtney Love, Carrie Fisher, Bhagavan Das, Ram Dass, Oumou Sangare, Rokia Traore, Stephen Fry, Eckhart Tolle, Michael Franti, Michael Stipe, DBC Pierre, Will Young Ram Dass Daniel Lanois, Maxi Jazz, Oumou Sangare, Mahotella Queens, Stewart Copeland, Lila Downs Ramata Diakite, and others. Deep breathe, Jamie is insanely gifted and our chat he shares his wisdom and we delve more into the workshops he is offering in 2020 and how he lets life happen to him and moves with the beat rather than move against the beat. He finds the space between the notes, and it definatly shines through in our chat, just what an amazing human being Jamie is. I was super nervous in our catch up, which I feel confident in my other talks, I have mastered moving through my nerves, but you can see why in our talk, Jamie is a big soul with a lot to share and I am committed to bringing my listeners the best parts of my guests, I believe we were able to reveal a lot of gems in our chat, and I hope to get to have him on again as their is so much more to share.. You can catch the full episode on OneSpaceLove You Tube Channel visit www.onespace.love

ArTEEtude is West Cork´s first art, fashion and design podcast created and produced by Detlef Schlich. He will dive and discover with us and the multi talent Kenny Dread into the unknown and exciting deep ocean of the creative mind. In this podcast, Dread and Schlich speak about Dread´s time as musician, stage-diving into the 1980's Washington D.C. punk-rock scene. He recorded go-go anthem D.C. Groove ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHS7FYDDEVM ) with Static Disruptors in 1982 and toured the East Coast with go-go punks Outrage until 1987. The Static D's and Outrage brought the funk to new-wave clubs like CBGB and Danceteria and had the skinheads skanking at hardcore hall shows. Kenny Dread got his stage name touring ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3589&v=RjBfz6azC28 ) and recording with the legendary Rastafari punk shaman and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee H.R. ( http://hrdocumentary.com/ ) , lead singer of Bad Brains ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pUlNfdnsAM ). During the 80's Kenny also promoted concerts and afterhours parties, produced records for D.C. punk groups ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptlUWdZiXbM ) , performed with nyabinghi reggae godfather Ras Michael ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixIEgQmbQYs ) , and recorded with English punk goddess Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGROSJbCPV8 ). The early 90's found Kenny in the South of France performing with American expatriate rock band The Immigrants ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmgY4wQgG2M ) , and collaborating with members of that group to create his first solo foray, the dreamy folk-rock Walkin' Down Your Street ( https://www.kennydread.com/music/walkin-down-your-street/ ). A slow motion move to the West of Ireland inspired a more acoustic mode: The rootsy singer-songwriter album Powderhorn ( https://www.kennydread.com/music/powderhorn/ ) was released in 1997 with contributions from Asian-American guitar wizard Levi Chen and Windham Hill harpist Lisa Lynne ( https://lisalynne.com/windham-hill-winter-solstice/ ) , as well as a licensed adaption of poetry by Michael Ondaatje ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ondaatje ) , author of The English Patient. Kirtan yoga chanting became a major focus from the turn of the century: Kenny Dread co-founded and produced Chicago chant ensemble Devi 2000 ( https://open.spotify.com/track/09Pxz5sRahmv2N0VdoGixt ) , and performed with kirtan dignitaries Dave Stringer and Bhagavan Das. Schlich is Visual Artist, Film Maker and Ritual Designer, living and loving in West Cork and best known for his Essay about the Cause and Effect of Shamanism, Art and Digital Culture and the video installation Transodin´s Tragedy. He is mainly working in the field of performance, photography, painting, sound, installations, and film. To research our human condition and create art work from this reflection he is using often the methodology of the digital-shaman as alter ego. Due to the pandemie and the following lock down Schlich had to stop his recent project, which was a digital crossover opera called Tribal Loop. Working on a new podcast concept and design, he produced and finally published the ArTEEtude podcast in August 2020. A new ArTEEtude episode is available twice a week on every common podcast platform. --------------- *WEBSITE LINKS* --------------- *Instagram* ----------- *Detlef Schlich* ( https://www.instagram.com/detschlich/ ) ** *ArTEEtude* ( https://www.instagram.com/arteetude/ ) ** *I love West Cork Artists* ( https://www.instagram.com/ilovewestcorkartists/ ) ** *Facebook* ---------- *Detlef Schlich* ( https://www.facebook.com/Transodin ) ** *I love West Cork Artists Group* ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/WestCorkArt/ ) *ArTEEtude* ( http://www.arteetude.com/ ) *You Tube Channels* ------------------- visual Podcast *ArTEEtude* ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnOjvvGVETmyPqv-jMCw1g?guided_help_flow=3 ) *Cute Alien TV* ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDN-60zrAMRlZn3rh2bxn7zA ) ** *official Website* ------------------ *ArTEEtude* ( http://www.arteetude.com/ ) ** *Detlef Schlich* ( http://www.detlefschlich.com/ ) ** *Det Design* ( http://www.detdesign.com/ ) ** *Tribal Loop* ( http://www.triballoop.com/ ) ** *Download here for free Detlef Schlich´s Essay about the* *Cause and Effect of Shamanism, Art and Digital Culture* ( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303749640_Shamanism_Art_and_Digital_Culture_Cause_and_Effect ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Kenny Dread Social Media* Contact and Videeo Clips --------------------------------------------------- https://www.kennydread.com/ https://www.instagram.com/kenny_dread/ https://www.facebook.com/kennydread/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgeCsEQB_iQquiq6eX-Mu5Q Bad Brains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pUlNfdnsAM ( https://l.facebook.com/l.php?h=AT2YVGGrIqWAoppwB4f9wNoAEpcrss26b0bS8uw7OMBxV0uZmPiVedM_5_XT3FVkurdXBZeSmuXARRXn9PDTkhULHGGPsaJqZSeD4AGp_I5-KcFyUt2saQJEWAUeEW2WT7k&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D2pUlNfdnsAM%26fbclid%3DIwAR1daTNnZdN63ww4OR4KFqc7j0Zt0LZ2DnyrMTabtxcdB4dD2_sYlfpguDE ) Static Disruptors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHS7FYDDEVM ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR3U1fW4uXEDEQ7aIW_v8euchaEXSoz48tSYQlExwPCinvDJiKfSwC2hSq4&v=WHS7FYDDEVM ) Kenny Dread https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_3aVtK4HRM ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR1j1zXJnQMo7biojONvKdJGA_UQQ2dbp8-4i3W3JcPZLvcFn-ibnwd6uDc&v=t_3aVtK4HRM ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x45AxfdA31o ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR0hHPpwe1-7wVR6tJAiojxwi6ps7745VfswByAJ17LlIUEXtiOFdx8ANGQ&v=x45AxfdA31o ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDNyRjhVe1Y ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR3U1fW4uXEDEQ7aIW_v8euchaEXSoz48tSYQlExwPCinvDJiKfSwC2hSq4&v=xDNyRjhVe1Y ) Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/arteetude-a-podcast-with-artists-by-detlef-schlich/donations

ArTEEtude is West Cork´s first art, fashion and design podcast created and produced by Detlef Schlich. He will dive and discover with us and the multi talent Kenny Dread into the unknown and exciting deep ocean of the creative mind. In this podcast, Dread and Schlich speak about Dread´s time as musician, stage-diving into the 1980's Washington D.C. punk-rock scene. He recorded go-go anthem D.C. Groove ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHS7FYDDEVM ) with Static Disruptors in 1982 and toured the East Coast with go-go punks Outrage until 1987. The Static D's and Outrage brought the funk to new-wave clubs like CBGB and Danceteria and had the skinheads skanking at hardcore hall shows. Kenny Dread got his stage name touring ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3589&v=RjBfz6azC28 ) and recording with the legendary Rastafari punk shaman and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee H.R. ( http://hrdocumentary.com/ ) , lead singer of Bad Brains ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pUlNfdnsAM ). During the 80's Kenny also promoted concerts and afterhours parties, produced records for D.C. punk groups ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptlUWdZiXbM ) , performed with nyabinghi reggae godfather Ras Michael ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixIEgQmbQYs ) , and recorded with English punk goddess Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGROSJbCPV8 ). The early 90's found Kenny in the South of France performing with American expatriate rock band The Immigrants ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmgY4wQgG2M ) , and collaborating with members of that group to create his first solo foray, the dreamy folk-rock Walkin' Down Your Street ( https://www.kennydread.com/music/walkin-down-your-street/ ). A slow motion move to the West of Ireland inspired a more acoustic mode: The rootsy singer-songwriter album Powderhorn ( https://www.kennydread.com/music/powderhorn/ ) was released in 1997 with contributions from Asian-American guitar wizard Levi Chen and Windham Hill harpist Lisa Lynne ( https://lisalynne.com/windham-hill-winter-solstice/ ) , as well as a licensed adaption of poetry by Michael Ondaatje ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ondaatje ) , author of The English Patient. Kirtan yoga chanting became a major focus from the turn of the century: Kenny Dread co-founded and produced Chicago chant ensemble Devi 2000 ( https://open.spotify.com/track/09Pxz5sRahmv2N0VdoGixt ) , and performed with kirtan dignitaries Dave Stringer and Bhagavan Das. Schlich is Visual Artist, Film Maker and Ritual Designer, living and loving in West Cork and best known for his Essay about the Cause and Effect of Shamanism, Art and Digital Culture and the video installation Transodin´s Tragedy. He is mainly working in the field of performance, photography, painting, sound, installations, and film. To research our human condition and create art work from this reflection he is using often the methodology of the digital-shaman as alter ego. Due to the pandemie and the following lock down Schlich had to stop his recent project, which was a digital crossover opera called Tribal Loop. Working on a new podcast concept and design, he produced and finally published the ArTEEtude podcast in August 2020. A new ArTEEtude episode is available twice a week on every common podcast platform. --------------- *WEBSITE LINKS* --------------- *Instagram* ----------- *Detlef Schlich* ( https://www.instagram.com/detschlich/ ) ** *ArTEEtude* ( https://www.instagram.com/arteetude/ ) ** *I love West Cork Artists* ( https://www.instagram.com/ilovewestcorkartists/ ) ** *Facebook* ---------- *Detlef Schlich* ( https://www.facebook.com/Transodin ) ** *I love West Cork Artists Group* ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/WestCorkArt/ ) *ArTEEtude* ( http://www.arteetude.com/ ) *You Tube Channels* ------------------- visual Podcast *ArTEEtude* ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnOjvvGVETmyPqv-jMCw1g?guided_help_flow=3 ) *Cute Alien TV* ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDN-60zrAMRlZn3rh2bxn7zA ) ** *official Website* ------------------ *ArTEEtude* ( http://www.arteetude.com/ ) ** *Detlef Schlich* ( http://www.detlefschlich.com/ ) ** *Det Design* ( http://www.detdesign.com/ ) ** *Tribal Loop* ( http://www.triballoop.com/ ) ** *Download here for free Detlef Schlich´s Essay about the* *Cause and Effect of Shamanism, Art and Digital Culture* ( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303749640_Shamanism_Art_and_Digital_Culture_Cause_and_Effect ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Kenny Dread Social Media* Contact and Videeo Clips --------------------------------------------------- https://www.kennydread.com/ https://www.instagram.com/kenny_dread/ https://www.facebook.com/kennydread/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgeCsEQB_iQquiq6eX-Mu5Q Bad Brains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pUlNfdnsAM ( https://l.facebook.com/l.php?h=AT2YVGGrIqWAoppwB4f9wNoAEpcrss26b0bS8uw7OMBxV0uZmPiVedM_5_XT3FVkurdXBZeSmuXARRXn9PDTkhULHGGPsaJqZSeD4AGp_I5-KcFyUt2saQJEWAUeEW2WT7k&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D2pUlNfdnsAM%26fbclid%3DIwAR1daTNnZdN63ww4OR4KFqc7j0Zt0LZ2DnyrMTabtxcdB4dD2_sYlfpguDE ) Static Disruptors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHS7FYDDEVM ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR3U1fW4uXEDEQ7aIW_v8euchaEXSoz48tSYQlExwPCinvDJiKfSwC2hSq4&v=WHS7FYDDEVM ) Kenny Dread https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_3aVtK4HRM ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR1j1zXJnQMo7biojONvKdJGA_UQQ2dbp8-4i3W3JcPZLvcFn-ibnwd6uDc&v=t_3aVtK4HRM ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x45AxfdA31o ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR0hHPpwe1-7wVR6tJAiojxwi6ps7745VfswByAJ17LlIUEXtiOFdx8ANGQ&v=x45AxfdA31o ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDNyRjhVe1Y ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR3U1fW4uXEDEQ7aIW_v8euchaEXSoz48tSYQlExwPCinvDJiKfSwC2hSq4&v=xDNyRjhVe1Y ) Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/arteetude-a-podcast-with-artists-by-detlef-schlich/donations

ArTEEtude is West Cork´s first art, fashion and design podcast created and produced by Detlef Schlich. He will dive and discover with us and the multi talent Kenny Dread into the unknown and exciting deep ocean of the creative mind. In this podcast, Dread and Schlich speak about Dread´s time as musician, stage-diving into the 1980's Washington D.C. punk-rock scene. He recorded go-go anthem D.C. Groove ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHS7FYDDEVM ) with Static Disruptors in 1982 and toured the East Coast with go-go punks Outrage until 1987. The Static D's and Outrage brought the funk to new-wave clubs like CBGB and Danceteria and had the skinheads skanking at hardcore hall shows. Kenny Dread got his stage name touring ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3589&v=RjBfz6azC28 ) and recording with the legendary Rastafari punk shaman and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee H.R. ( http://hrdocumentary.com/ ) , lead singer of Bad Brains ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pUlNfdnsAM ). During the 80's Kenny also promoted concerts and afterhours parties, produced records for D.C. punk groups ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptlUWdZiXbM ) , performed with nyabinghi reggae godfather Ras Michael ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixIEgQmbQYs ) , and recorded with English punk goddess Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGROSJbCPV8 ). The early 90's found Kenny in the South of France performing with American expatriate rock band The Immigrants ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmgY4wQgG2M ) , and collaborating with members of that group to create his first solo foray, the dreamy folk-rock Walkin' Down Your Street ( https://www.kennydread.com/music/walkin-down-your-street/ ). A slow motion move to the West of Ireland inspired a more acoustic mode: The rootsy singer-songwriter album Powderhorn ( https://www.kennydread.com/music/powderhorn/ ) was released in 1997 with contributions from Asian-American guitar wizard Levi Chen and Windham Hill harpist Lisa Lynne ( https://lisalynne.com/windham-hill-winter-solstice/ ) , as well as a licensed adaption of poetry by Michael Ondaatje ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ondaatje ) , author of The English Patient. Kirtan yoga chanting became a major focus from the turn of the century: Kenny Dread co-founded and produced Chicago chant ensemble Devi 2000 ( https://open.spotify.com/track/09Pxz5sRahmv2N0VdoGixt ) , and performed with kirtan dignitaries Dave Stringer and Bhagavan Das. Schlich is Visual Artist, Film Maker and Ritual Designer, living and loving in West Cork and best known for his Essay about the Cause and Effect of Shamanism, Art and Digital Culture and the video installation Transodin´s Tragedy. He is mainly working in the field of performance, photography, painting, sound, installations, and film. To research our human condition and create art work from this reflection he is using often the methodology of the digital-shaman as alter ego. Due to the pandemie and the following lock down Schlich had to stop his recent project, which was a digital crossover opera called Tribal Loop. Working on a new podcast concept and design, he produced and finally published the ArTEEtude podcast in August 2020. A new ArTEEtude episode is available twice a week on every common podcast platform. --------------- *WEBSITE LINKS* --------------- *Instagram* ----------- *Detlef Schlich* ( https://www.instagram.com/detschlich/ ) ** *ArTEEtude* ( https://www.instagram.com/arteetude/ ) ** *I love West Cork Artists* ( https://www.instagram.com/ilovewestcorkartists/ ) ** *Facebook* ---------- *Detlef Schlich* ( https://www.facebook.com/Transodin ) ** *I love West Cork Artists Group* ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/WestCorkArt/ ) *ArTEEtude* ( http://www.arteetude.com/ ) *You Tube Channels* ------------------- visual Podcast *ArTEEtude* ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnOjvvGVETmyPqv-jMCw1g?guided_help_flow=3 ) *Cute Alien TV* ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDN-60zrAMRlZn3rh2bxn7zA ) ** *official Website* ------------------ *ArTEEtude* ( http://www.arteetude.com/ ) ** *Detlef Schlich* ( http://www.detlefschlich.com/ ) ** *Det Design* ( http://www.detdesign.com/ ) ** *Tribal Loop* ( http://www.triballoop.com/ ) ** *Download here for free Detlef Schlich´s Essay about the* *Cause and Effect of Shamanism, Art and Digital Culture* ( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303749640_Shamanism_Art_and_Digital_Culture_Cause_and_Effect ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Kenny Dread Social Media* Contact and Videeo Clips --------------------------------------------------- https://www.kennydread.com/ https://www.instagram.com/kenny_dread/ https://www.facebook.com/kennydread/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgeCsEQB_iQquiq6eX-Mu5Q Bad Brains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pUlNfdnsAM ( https://l.facebook.com/l.php?h=AT2YVGGrIqWAoppwB4f9wNoAEpcrss26b0bS8uw7OMBxV0uZmPiVedM_5_XT3FVkurdXBZeSmuXARRXn9PDTkhULHGGPsaJqZSeD4AGp_I5-KcFyUt2saQJEWAUeEW2WT7k&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D2pUlNfdnsAM%26fbclid%3DIwAR1daTNnZdN63ww4OR4KFqc7j0Zt0LZ2DnyrMTabtxcdB4dD2_sYlfpguDE ) Static Disruptors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHS7FYDDEVM ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR3U1fW4uXEDEQ7aIW_v8euchaEXSoz48tSYQlExwPCinvDJiKfSwC2hSq4&v=WHS7FYDDEVM ) Kenny Dread https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_3aVtK4HRM ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR1j1zXJnQMo7biojONvKdJGA_UQQ2dbp8-4i3W3JcPZLvcFn-ibnwd6uDc&v=t_3aVtK4HRM ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x45AxfdA31o ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR0hHPpwe1-7wVR6tJAiojxwi6ps7745VfswByAJ17LlIUEXtiOFdx8ANGQ&v=x45AxfdA31o ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDNyRjhVe1Y ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR3U1fW4uXEDEQ7aIW_v8euchaEXSoz48tSYQlExwPCinvDJiKfSwC2hSq4&v=xDNyRjhVe1Y ) Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/arteetude-a-podcast-with-artists-by-detlef-schlich/donations

Become possessed with love and slip under Maharajji's blanket with me and Eric Siegal. He met many spiritual beings in the early 70's that would hand out Shakti (spiritual energy) “like candy” in his words. Eric got plenty of candy and met incredible beings like Muktananda, Kalu Rinpoche, Bhagavan Das and many others in this extraordinary story of awakening. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Rose Erin Vaughan shares how she came to her yoga practice, her teachers Dharma Mittra and Bhagavan Das, cultivating training in Acupuncture, being validated in her humanity, and embodying her dharma as a medicine spreader.You can catch her in the elements of her work at http://nyhre.org/, train with her through https://www.scienceofselfytt.com/, learn from her through http://www.bodyawarenewyork.com/about, or contact her through us at yogisontheroad@gmail.com. Join the conversation, give us feedback; we are all in this together.

Is it possible to be a spiritual being in a human body? Transcendent, yet grounded? And why is that so many “spiritual leaders” tell us to leave our feelings behind? How is it possible to be truly connected to another person - including on the spiritual level? To get to the heart, body, and soul of these questions, we’re having a return visit from Jeff Brown, author of the recently released book “Grounded Spirituality”. Jeff’s work is focused on connecting you to your precious, unique divinity - in a way that’s practical, connected, and...real. Or as Jeff Brown might say...enrealed. If you’re curious to hear our first episode together, you can also check out Episode 118 of Relationship Alive - Crafting an Uncommon Bond and Soulshaping with Jeff Brown. As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Sponsors: Find a quality therapist, online, to support you and work on the places where you’re stuck. For 10% off your first month, visit Betterhelp.com/ALIVE to fill out the quick questionnaire and get paired with a therapist who’s right for you. Resources: Visit Jeff Brown’s website to learn more about his books and his other projects. Pick up a copy of Grounded Spirituality by Jeff Brown on Amazon. FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict and shifting the codependent patterns in your relationship Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Your Relationship (ALSO FREE) Visit www.neilsattin.com/grounded to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Jeff Brown. Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out Transcript: Neil Sattin  Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host Neil Sattin.  Neil Sattin  It's always a thrill to get a return visit from a particularly awesome guest. And today is going to be one of those days. Here to talk about the, his new book "Grounded Spirituality," is Jeff Brown, who is also the author of "Soulshaping," and "An Uncommon Bond," and in fact we had him here on Relationship Alive, I guess it was probably about a year and a half ago, maybe, to talk about those two books. And if you're curious to hear that episode you can visit Neil-Sattin-dot-com-slash-soul-shaping. All one word. And today, we're going to talk about this approach to living a spiritual life that allows us to be fully grounded in who we are as humans in terms of our unique existence on this planet right now. I'm not going to try to describe the whole thing that's what I'm here to talk to Jeff Brown for. However I just want to say that for me personally this book came at a really challenged time when I've been going through a lot in my own life and I found some of the exercises in this book to be really helpful. And some of the viewpoints represented to help dispel some of the myths that I've been carrying around with me about what it means to be a spiritual being in a human body. And and helped me integrate in a in a new way that's been really helpful and transformative in terms of my day to day life right now. So I found the book to be really inspiring and that's why I'm so excited to be sharing it with you along with Jeff Brown it's auth, it's author.  Neil Sattin  So if you want to download a transcript of today's conversation, which promises to be quite far reaching, then I encourage you to do so at Neil-Sattin-dot-com-slash-grounded, as in "Grounded Spirituality," not as in your grounded for being a bad human. And you can always text to the word Passion to the number 3-3-4-4-4 and follow the instructions to also get access to the transcripts and show notes for today's conversation. I think that's it for starters. So Jeff Brown, welcome back to Relationship Alive.  Jeff Brown  Great to be with you Neil. It's good to be here.  Neil Sattin  We're here to talk about "Grounded Spirituality," and I gave my off the cuff definition in the intro but I'm wondering if you might be able to give us a quick synopsis of what you mean by a "grounded spirituality," and maybe contrast that with what people tend to talk about when they're talking about spirituality and why this distinction is so important for you? Jeff Brown  So let me just read from the book the grounded spirituality definition then go into the second part of your question.  Neil Sattin  Sure.  Jeff Brown  "Grounded spirituality is an all encompassing experience of spirituality that is rooted in and thread throughout all aspects of our humanity and earthly experience. We begin and end our spiritual quest within the ground of our being, our embodied humanness, as both interpreter of experience and as our individuated portal to divinity we don't look outside of our human form for spirituality we look deeper with a name and form, cultivating a more refined understanding of the divine reflection that exists right in the heart of our selfhood. We honor its sacred qualities and transformative properties celebrating it as the perfectly constructed laboratory of expansion that it is. With our feet rooted firmly on Mother Earth and in daily life, we become grounded in reality in all its identifiable forms. We expand outward and inward from there. In essence grounded and spirituality are synonyms. They both mean reality. The more deeply grounded you are in your body and selfhood, the more fully you are here. The more fully you are here, the more spiritual your experience. It's from the depths of your being that you have the greatest access to the everything."  Jeff Brown  So for me you know I mean, my journey really began in the psychotherapeutic process. I didn't really have any idea of this thing called spirituality so I really... And, and as I went through that process and moved from more of a talk therapy model to working with Al Lowen and doing other somatic psychotherapy techniques, I found that the more deeply I opened and released the more expanded my vista. I felt like at the end of sessions or at the end of holotropic breathwork, I felt completely and deeply here in a unity consciousness field. And, but it happened through my body and it happened through the psycho emotional release. It didn't happen through anything separate from or distinct from my day to day experience. It was all coming through and threaded through my humanness. So I think I carry that forward and then began to explore this thing called spirituality and it began really with the love experience I wrote about in "An Uncommon Bond," and coming into a unified field or what I called the Unified Field from the love experience again through my heart and through my body through my being and then I began to encounter people like Bhagavan Das, and made Karmageddon and all kinds of other people in social media that were defining spirituality in a way that seemed to be devoid of humanness. I mean, it seemed to really be about something called transcendence. Something about finding selfhood finding spirituality independent of self, body, ego, feelings, stories -- everything about my humanness, everything difficult and uncomfortable was dissed. And spirituality was some awakened consciousness and an absolute consciousness field outside of my localized experience. That wasn't where I found it. I found it inside of my localized experience and so I, you know, as I've continued to work in the area and write in the area and develop ideas in the area, I began to realize that there's this thing called patriarchal spirituality. There is this thing I call the "new cage movement" there's this whole industry, industrial notion of spirituality that people are economically dependent on that tries to set off our humanness from our spirituality and that's just simply has not been my experience, and I feel as though that's one of the reasons why our species is in trouble because this way as in many other ways we continue to dissociated from our humanness in quest of something outside of it without understanding that the true integration happens has to happen right in the heart of it.  Neil Sattin  I love that. And I'm thinking now of like the first place that I want to go with this, is, uh, that notion of transcendence and how helpful it has been for people to explore that to, to explore witness consciousness and, to in some senses let's just use the phrase rise above their, the drama and the chaos of human existence in order to get some perspective some peace. And your book is written as a dialogue between yourself and this character named Michael who is really rooted in this sense of spiritual journey that's all about transcending. Transcending reality or being far enough above it that you're you're not drowning in the chaos of it. And I think that's why it's so alluring to people because it, it's can feel easy to drown in the chaos of, of life and emotions and circumstances. So. Um.And you of course talk about Eckhart Tolle as a great example of someone who is you know the figurehead in some respects of the modern western transcendence movement. And so I'm wondering for you, where's the value in learning this witness consciousness and being able to take perspective vs. living there? Jeff Brown  So the simple way I put it is that detachment is a tool. It's not a life. So for me... And transcendence can be defined you know, definitional stuff is very important and we won't go too far into it here. But you know what one person calls "transcendence," another person call something else. So the whole language of rising above being heightened all of that for me is part of the patriarchal bypass movement. That's not to say that being able to pull up and out and look at your localized self through various meditative and other techniques gain perspective on your habitual range of emotion, on the stories you tell yourself, and the way you move through the world on the various forms of anxiety that operate within you, is a good thing. It helped me enormously to be able to pull out of my very localized experience of Jeff Brown, from that super crazy childhood, and begin to witness myself and recognize and excavate parts of me that I didn't have access to in my habitual way of moving through the world. I have no issue with it. If Tolle  had written, "Power of Now," a book that I call the "power of self-avoidance." If if Tolle had written that book and he had said, "Look, I..." As he said in the beginning I think he said, he was suicidal and very troubled. If he'd said, "Look, I had all kinds of problems. And one morning I woke up and I developed, had developed some kind of a technique or access to a particular consciousness that gave me access to my material." Don't call it a pain body, don't talk about it like you're talking about a car part, acknowledge your tender woundedness, and then he said, "And I spent a lot of time out there getting perspective on where I'd been. Understanding my ancestral context, understanding how this painful material wove its way through my ways of being, and then I developed techniques for coming back down into that material," as though the material is in fact quite true and quite real and no illusion, no bashing of the ego, no bashing of the self, no bashing of the feelings, no bashing of emotions, no bashing of anything human. Acknowledging it, recognizing it, and understand that you needed to bring another consciousness into it in order to find the balance. The weave. The Holy Holy. That you need to move through the world with a connection to a more unified field and a profound and deep and worked through awareness of the localized self. If he had said that, I got no problem with that book. But he didn't.  He called that a, what'd he call it "a guide for enlightenment" or something in this, in the sub header? When you present the detachment or that as something that is the end of the story essentially to me that's just dissociative and that's not going to serve this humanity. We know why people want to do it. They're uncomfortable here. It's painful here. So they use the meditation as a drug or they use witnessing consciousness as a drug, and they convinced themselves they've gone to that superior place because they're numbing and detaching from all that material that's stirring up inside of them. It's still in there. It still shows up in their personal life. None of these teachers tell you about their personal lives, but you find out things about a lot of spiritual teachers' personal lives and you realize that this is an industry and they're telling you a story about their lives that isn't the whole story. Their stuff is still activated, their stuff is still working on them. They have not resolved work through all those pieces. And so for me what we need to do is develop a spirituality that acknowledges the wisdom and brings techniques to bear on people to be able to pull up and out, to pull back and look at themselves, to do the witnessing consciousness trip, to have a taste of something called "unity consciousness," and then to come back down into the body with that wisdom and find the weave between transcendence and imminence. That for me is the truest human experience.  Neil Sattin  So let's contrast that with maybe some of your experience around the more human material. So when we come back in and write about how much is tends to be locked in the body and we've had right, Peter Levine on the show several times so that's that's I think, hopefully a level of discourse that listeners are familiar with, this idea that we're storing trauma in our body and if we're not dealing with it, then we're gonna have to stay in this dissociated state in order to feel like we're somehow coping, and I could, I could see like the freedom the illusion of freedom in that for people because we can't live there, there's that reality of your back in your, within your human form and there's still some shit to work through.  Jeff Brown  Absolutely. It's, I mean trauma. It's encoded in the body. Its stored in the body. It's in the body. So I knew this in a very palpable way, when I shifted from being a talk therapy client to being a body centered psychotherapy client, and I would sit with Alexander Lowen for who was the co-founder of Bio and I would sit and talk for 15 minutes with him and he'd just be looking at my body and he'd be engaging my mind because he knew I needed that to feel safe, and I knew what he was doing but I needed to do it. And then he would say, "All right, you ready to work? You ready to get to work?" And so to get undressed, so I get into my underwear, my shorts whatever I would do and he would start working me, in the body, grounding me in the body, going over the stool, tantruming, kicking, and all of a sudden I would have access to a completely different experience of reality than my waking consciousness. It was painful. It was horrifying. There were memories that I had no conscious connection to in my day to day life, and understandably, I had to survive and get through my life. I couldn't be in touch with all that trauma but my experience of deep inside of my body was radically and remarkably different than who I thought I was. And I had tried going up and out I had been around the bypass movement I had attempted to be a bypasser. I would love to be a bypasser. But I just can't be a bypasser, it's just not, it, it's not in the way that I'm organized internally. But you know at the same time I was living kind of in between. I wasn't a bypasser but I wasn't going deep into the caverns of my own body consciousness. So Lowen, by going to Lowen, manifesting Lowen, what, however we characterize it, I was forced to go back down into that material. I chose to go back to into that material and and then I began to understand this deep and profound connection between this thing we could call imminence, the localized the day to day, the mundane whatever we call it and this thing called transcendence or unity consciousness field or the non-dual world, and then I would encounter it the spiritual world, they were talking about non duality and they all seem flatlined. They talk like automatons, they were they were addicted to meditation, you know, TM-ers, I knew so many TM-ers, who were like yogic flying and their personal lives were utterly insane, you know, there was no bridge. So I began to understand that my body was the bridge. My body is the bridge and it's the way that I try to make sense of how I can hold all of these threads of consciousness at the same time. And so. And Peter Levine is one of the great brilliant pioneers, and I noted him in the book. So his John Perocco, so is Wilhelm Reich. So is, you know, David Berceli is doing great work. Lowen, of course, did utterly brilliant work these people to me are the true spiritual teachers, because I define spirituality as reality, Neil. So the one who guides us or supports us in a movement towards being in touch with all threads of reality which must begin within the self it has to begin within the self, itself. To me those are the true spiritual teachers, not the ones who master a singular thread of consciousness master witnesses master meditators masters at the art of our premature forgiveness. There's a million of them out there calling themselves spiritual teachers to me there's nothing spiritual about them because all they've done is perfected one thread and they're not able to function within all of the threads of the human experience.  Neil Sattin  That's one thing that's so appealing to me about your, your writing in "Grounded Spirituality," is this way that you continue speaking to "integrating." Integrating the spiritual awareness, integrating what's happening within your body, integrating your emotional awareness, integrating your intuition so that it it all becomes part of you as an alive, dynamic being. And what I've seen, what I've witnessed, it feels kind of funny to use that word, with lots of my clients who have been going through this sort of thing is that when people are totally focused on the meditative path, it actually creates a lot of challenges in relationship, because there's all that unconscious material that's still running them in the ways that they interact with each other or conversely they're they're kind of not really interacting with each other. They're, they're like two dissociated beings, or more likely one dissociated being, and another, who's like trying to call them back and then both of them of course have their work to do in order to to arrive at this place of being more integrated and unfolding in that way because I think it's it's not a static place, right? It's this dynamic place where you continually arrive again and again.  Neil Sattin  Absolutely. I mean this is why the mindfulness revolution is dangerous. This is why the, you know, the society wide industry now really related to meditation is dangerous. I mean I get that meditation can be a wonderful technique for connecting to the self for pulling away from the localized material for periods of time, to getting a break from what it means to be a human being, you know, or at least to get a break from some aspect of that. But the problem is again, if it's not also coupled with some kind of re entry process and reintegration process, it's like we're moving towards inclusivity with respect to gender, with respect to sexuality, certainly with respect to race, you know, ethnicity, all kinds of ways. But I believe because the spiritual community is the one area in society where nobody's allowed to critically review it. It's amazing how well, how effective patriarchal spirituality in its origins has been at preventing us from deconstructing. You just got to go on my Facebook wall, when I put up a post where I'm critically reviewing a teaching, and how many conscious people even, really people who've really done work on themselves say, "Oh my God. How can you do that. You have no right to critique that person's teaching. You have no right to critique that experience." They're OK if we critique politics. They're OK if we deconstruct legal decisions. They're OK with us critically reviewing religion, but not spirituality. And this is the biggest part of the problem. You know if we're going to move in the direction of an inclusive world we have to allow for the critical review of everything that is not inclusive and that really includes spirituality because spirituality is growing in popularity, religion is becoming less popular worldwide. And if we keep moving in the direction of this protectorate this nonsense about certain spirituality as being a sacred cow we're leading humanity away from inclusively while at the same time pretending that we're moving them in the direction of something more advanced it's not more advanced if it's not inclusive.  It can't be.  Neil Sattin  I suppose the one thing that really speaks to me in your writing is that sense of the imminence that you talk about being here, in the here and now, partly because I feel like that is really the place where relationship actually springs from at least springs from in its most, most healthy manifestation. You know, it's two people who are actually being fully here and alive to what's happening within themselves.  Jeff Brown  Right.  Neil Sattin  And, and. That's the thing that I think scares me a little bit about the spirituality movement is the way that it's discouraging people from actually feeling their full experience here with another human. Because that of course is what propels the growth that happens in relationship with another person.    Right. Well you know this is the trick of patriarchal spirituality to talk about the now, while leading you away from the now. That's the whole game. "The Power of Now," that's a very powerful sounding book title. "Be Here Now." Wow, what a powerful concept. But what are we really talking about we're talking about a notion of now-ness that is bereft of individuation. That is not connected to what I call the power of then, that is the true material that you're holding within your beingness unresolved, traumatic material, unresolved memories, unresolved events and experiences that completely inform your experience of the moment. Can you be fully in the moment if threads of your consciousness and threads that are somatically embedded in structure to defend and in armored ways of functioning, actually prevent you from being here in this moment? How could I be?  Neil Sattin  Right.  Jeff Brown  If I'm holding onto all kinds of stuff. And as a result of that early stuff I shallowed my breath. I pulled my head up and away from my body I tighten my hips, I rigidified my system, can I say that I'm actually in the now, in a full and complete sense? Of course not. So most of the people who are teaching now-ness are actually tricking you, they uh, or they're tricking themselves or both. They are the farthest thing from being in the moment because their version of the now is this patriarchal, cave dwelling, meditative absolute consciousness field, where you diss the self, you diss the story, you diss the ego you diss your body sometimes, you diss your feelings. All of that is an illusion, all of that is misidentified. But what's real is some version of the nowness where you're floating in the clouds scapes like we're birds or something? And you're having some experience of this absolute field of enlightenment, as though there is such a thing, as though we're not in process, as though it's not a relative experience? To me it's a big lie. So then people are going, "Wow, I get to be in the now." It gets... And the trick is we do get a little bit of relief when we get access to these techniques because they do pull us up but out of that worry-mind. Alright, I get that. But you have to look a little closer because then they go farther, they're actually taking you farther and farther away from your humanness and it's particularly dangerous for trauma survivors who really need to have a sense of intactness and integration and we're being led in the direction of dissolution of the ego, denial of the story, um, dishonoring of their feelings, all of it is unreal and untrue. And you know what,  what really got me going in this in 2013, someone I new on Facebook hung themselves after they'd bought into all these new cage and patriarchal notions of spirituality, fired their therapist and when their stuff kept haunting them in the middle of the night, they had nobody to turn to because now they had dissed all of that, and then they ended up hanging themselves and they announced it in advance, it was very clear what was coming. And I called the cops and tried to get them to go and they went and they couldn't do anything and then they hung themselves and that's when I really began to understand, and I'm understanding in my "Grounded Spirituality" discu-discussion group on Facebook. You hear these stories about how these bullshit versions of spirituality have damaged and destroyed lives, you know, and then you, you feel, I have felt compelled to find a voice that I'm not comfortable sharing in an effort to try to encourage us in the direction of a new spirituality not one that was fostered by men who couldn't admit their fucked up ness and had to go into meditation caves and convinced a village that they were the enlightened masters, that we're bringing great wisdom for twenty years sitting in a meditation cave being served by the villagers. That nonsense is ridiculous, that doesn't bring us into integration with ourselves or with humanity and now I think we need to move in the direction, as sacred activists, to bring ourselves into integration spiritually just like we're trying to bring everything else into integration.  Neil Sattin  Can you draw a distinction for me, between what, how what we're talking about is spiritual, and sacred, since you just used that word vs. just, I'm going to a body centered therapist healing my old traumas.  Jeff Brown  Mmmm, reframe the question?  Neil Sattin  So in other words. How is what you're talking about different than, like if I were able to go to see, I know Alexander Lowen is no longer with us, but if I were able to go with him, is that in and of itself a spiritual experience? Or is there something more that's part of the spirituality that you're talking about? The grounded spirituality.  Jeff Brown  So, so, I'll give you my Alexander Lowen moment because I was beginning to now to question the very beginning of, what is spirituality? So I brought it to him. I think it was in our last session I said, "So, Al, what is this thing they're talking about? About spirituality. What does this even mean?" You know, and he went: "UFFF." Like he was annoyed by the question and he said, he said, he said, "Going into your body, enlivening your body, getting your body grounded, and spirited. That's spirituality." So I think for me anything that we do that brings us into a more complete experience of reality, I would call a spiritual experience. I mean everything is spirituality. Spirituality is reality for me.  My opposition is simply to anything that's calling itself spirituality because of the way that I define it as reality. Those things that are only limiting our experience to certain elements of the human equation while dissing and disconnecting and boundarying themselves against the other part of it, to me are not actually part of the spiritual experience. So, the real spiritual teacher, if anyone is a spiritual teacher and really I say later in the book really nobody is. But you know for me somatic psychotherapists came closer to that because I felt that because they were taking me into my body and into the body of my experience and through that portal I had more access to a broader and inclusive experience of reality that felt more like a spiritual teaching than going to a non dual meeting and sitting in a Satsang, and accessing one very particular, elitist notion of what it means to be a human being while disconnecting from and dissing all the rest.  Neil Sattin  Got it. I'm wondering if you could offer one of the exercises from your book, so that our listeners can get a flavor for the kinds of experiences that we're being invited into.  Jeff Brown  Yeah, I have one called the excavation meditation. In "The truth is the gateway to the moment," chapter so I'll read that.  Neil Sattin  Okay great.  Jeff Brown  Great. Maybe you can do it, Neil. "Sit on a chair on the floor or on a cushion in whatever position feels most comfortable. While sitting do not close your eyes or focus your gaze directly ahead or above you. Instead keep your eyes opened and focus downward looking directly and with great curiosity at your body temple. Gaze at your body as you would a loved one. Begin to make contact with your breath, inviting it into awareness, feeling it move through you. First, start with gentle breathing as if you are gradually warming up. Then, invite your breath to move strongly and pointedly throughout your body infusing your body with life force, pushing into and beyond tightly held regions if you feel resistance do not hesitate or recoil. Breathe even stronger. If you feel emotions do not merely watch them as they float past. Instead immerse yourself in them deepen into feeling, inviting all held emotions and memories to be fully felt. Use the breath as an excavation tool. With your breath purposefully dig deep. Your aim is to bring repressed material to the surface, where it can be released and reintegrated. Allow this meditation to become a kind of visceral physical landscape of feeling and sensation. If there are tears, feel into and move them, to the extent that you can. If there's anger feel into and move it, to the extent that you can. If there are words or sounds express them fully. If you find yourself turning toward your habitual meditation style that includes a focus on the sensations of the body, return to the breath and intensify it. If you find yourself getting distracted by thoughts return to the breath and intensify it. If you find yourself wanting this exercise to end, return to the breath and intensify it, whatever arises return to the breath and intensify it. Your breath is your excavation tool and your guide. Now you are not just watching the body as it contracts and expands, you are fully experiencing and inhabiting the body, feelings, emotions, sounds, sensations, textures, roars, all and everything. Stay with this process until you have fully abandoned the watcher and have become a full bodied total experiencer feeling, moving, expressing and releasing as fully as you can."  Jeff Brown  So I think for me you know this notion of monkey mind was very interesting, you know, it was like, OK I've got a monkey mind and I, so, when I wrote "Soulshaping,"  I was kind of a little bit more in that version of spirituality and talked about the monkey mind, and then I began to realize that really it was a monkey heart. You know, that focusing on the mind, getting inside of the mind, witnessing the mind, having various meditative, meditative techniques within the mind itself didn't seem to get me anywhere. I was just sort of going into one part of the mind to try to calm down another part of the mind. It felt like a very safe and irrational way to go about it, because when I went down into the body when I opened the material in this this armored temple of mine, I excavated feeling. I excavated sound. I excavated the need to rage or cry or whatever came through me. At the end of those discharges, I felt as though my mind completely calmed down. So it seemed very clear to me that this notion, this patriarchal notion, that everything is happening up high, and the mind is to blame for everything, which seems to be at the root of almost all of those spiritualities, if you read them, they're always blaming the mind, seemed to me to be a very safe and convenient thing, it was like talking to Michael, it was like Michael was at a safe place, was like how women have been perpetually frustrated by men who haven't accessed their feelings -- it was all the same thing.  Jeff Brown  It was like a little boy who, who, who had pain and and didn't want anyone to know he was in pain so he, he picked up the Captain America shield and said, "I am Captain America," became a master. To me all of this mastering the mind nonsense didn't seem to get me anywhere. The only way that I ever changed anything inside of my mind really fundamentally was to change something inside of my heart and I think at the heart of patriarchal -- grounded spirituality is the belief not only that we live inside of the body, and through the body is a portal to all of it, but also that we understand the importance of clearing this emotional debris that obstructs our, our lense, that obstructs our presence. That makes it impossible-possible for us to actually be in the now. We could be in the now in a cerebral sense. We could be in the now in a tangible literal sense, but in a felt sense if we're not in the now we're not in the now at all.  Neil Sattin  So I'm sitting with all of your words and also just with my experience from being guided through that process earlier and. And it rings true for me on the show I've recently had a triumvirate of AEDP therapists. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that modality but it's, I wouldn't, it's not body centered, per say, but the whole focus in that modality is on healing early attachment wounds relationally, through, with your therapist and they, they bring this whole skill set of co-regulation that I've found really helps me access these deep places, these deep wounded places, and heal in relationship with another person.  Jeff Brown  Great.  Neil Sattin  And at the same time what that process is with those, with that therapy has helped me see is just how much I am carrying around at any given moment. And you know I'm 45 years old. I've got probably, at least 45 years of things coming at me crosswise and it's not that everything has come at me crosswise, there, I've had a lot of blessed experiences in my life as well.  Jeff Brown  Right.  Neil Sattin  But those crosswise experiences I wouldn't say that I had the proper support as a kid to really handle those big feelings and I don't think many people do.  Jeff Brown  Right.  Neil Sattin  And so the technique that you just offered with connecting with the breath and, and you know, I loved how it started and even though I read it in your book I still like, when you said, when you invited me into the exercise, first thing I did was close my eyes you know and then the next thing you said was, open your eyes, and it was just like pretty amusing for me. And, and then I felt like by going through it, it really did help me access something that's here within me now. And you know for me it was this sense of, "Oh there are some tears there." Like I said I've been going through some challenges right now, some personal discovery that that's been like really eye opening for me as I look back over the landscape of my life. And so here in this moment I was super present to some, some grief and, and it was mixed with love that invitation to be looking at my body temple, as you name it. I think how also helped me connect with not only the sadness I was feeling in that moment but also the love that I had for this vehicle, this vessel for my, for my earthly experience. So I'm, I'm really just appreciating I, I felt within me like, OK if I weren't sitting here talking to you for the purposes of having a podcast like there, there are real deep aspects of that experience that I could have gone into and that moment right.  Jeff Brown  Right. Right. And end of an end for all kinds of various reasons we, we don't you know or we can't. Even though I could probably easily hold the space for that. And as you could for me, I think. You know we our adaptations and you know survivalist tendencies and practical response, all that stuff. You know, one thing I understand, it's very simple in a way when I think about this thing called spirituality, is that everybody I've ever known as part of this human collective at this stage of human development is carrying an enormity of unresolved individual, very personal and ancestral material collected material and you know we approach this question of, What is Enlightenment? What is awakening? All these kinds of things. And it seems kind of preposterous to me, and I actually mean that with some compassion, that we try to answer these questions when we're not actually fully inhabiting our bodies. When we're walking around in these deeply armored and obstructed temples and then trying to ask the question, what has meaning? You know, what has, what is awakening. What does it mean to be an enlightened or enlightening consciousness? What is enrealment? All these things if we don't begin within clearing the emotional debris that obstructs us and affects our beliefs and our behaviors and our energies and our, and our relationships. I mean we see this all over the relationship field where at this stage of human development it's all most people can do to figure out who they are individually, let alone try to work it out with another person in the room for 30 years. I mean if you think about it it's a great miracle when two people can survive 30 years or even 30 days together given the amount of material we're carrying. And so for me and it's kind of simple. Before we go farther into the question of what is the most expanded consciousness, we need to clear the debris.  You know it's like trying to see what a room looks like when the room is completely filled with garbage, you can't. You can see the dimensions, maybe the size of it, but you can't really get a sense of that room. And I think that that's where we are. And I think that the more techniques we develop, not to pull us up and out, sure, for survival purposes. Sure, when we need to disassociate because sometimes we do, and I honor that and I've employed those techniques. I still do, I'm employing them right now in the last couple of weeks but at the same time until we start to develop takes to techniques, like Peter Levine's work, like Logan's work, that really bring us down into the truth of what we're holding not calling it a pain body like it's a car part, but acknowledging our tender woundedness and the tender woundedness of the collective. Finding ways to get into that material, to hold it safely, individually, collectively, therapeutically. Move it through so that it's resolved transformed whatever can be healed, can be healed, whatever can't be healed is managed. All of that, I don't think we even know what we're talking about when we talk about awakening. I think we're just full of shit to be honest.  And I think that's because we're literally are full of shit and we need to move that debris but before we can begin to access the truer and deeper questions of our lives.  Neil Sattin  How would you suggest someone know whether or not, because this, this experience of accessing, the, you know, let's say you rise above, you see the, the garage full of boxes and boxes of old stuff and then you're like, Okay, I'm not going to stay in this risen above state I'm gonna go back and I'm going to start cleaning things out, I'm gonna clean house. When do you think someone needs help and support in that realm? Because I think that's you know the illusion that we have about big feelings and this is, I think, part of the cycle is when we're young those big feelings, especially when we're not given a safe container for them. They do feel like they're there too big they overwhelm the system and our nervous systems aren't, they aren't essentially capable of handling them. So, so then we have this irrational fear as an adult that we can't move through them when in fact like going into a feeling like that it does... It comes on strong and then it does subside and leaves you in a better off place, at least that's been my experience. And yet at the same time, I also have this feeling that for some people they may need a container or someone who's there to kind of help hold the space for them to have those kinds of experiences and so how in your opinion how would I know where I was landing on that spectrum?  Jeff Brown  I mean, I don't know that you would. I mean a great many -- most people walk around you know living far distance from their body. Was that a line from I think it was, Walter Mitty or something: "He lived a fair distance from his body." Um. You know, I feel like what has to happen is this conversation has to be normalized and, within society. And I think it's beginning to happen and I think that it needs to begin to happen in the school system, where, there's some forum created for emotional attunement because we're talking about not being attuned at an early age for a healthy emotional release for supported release within the school, within the classroom, with teachers, with practitioners that are part of that. I think it has to happen in corporate environments where we learn how to attuned to and move material that's preventing us from being most effective. I think we need to have some kind of release chambers on street corners, where people can go inside and smash a cube with a baseball bat and normalize it, normalize healthy anger release, because it's, anger has been so deeply stigmatized that now all of it's restrained, repressed, and gets acted out in all kinds of weird passive aggressive, inappropriate ways. I think we just have to make this part of our every part of society so that attunement and release are normal and are considered to be healthy steps towards a healthy society. And, and then people will be able to gauge themselves. So right now you have people walking into a b- a body centered psychotherapist room who've never really enlivened their body. Who've been adapting, amoring in a million different ways. All they know is that consciousness. That's how they've organized themselves to survive in the crazy world and and then they have the super extreme experience of grounding, opening it. "Oh my God, what is this?" And many of them leave. Many people will go to somatic psychotherapy sessions and never do more than one, because it's, it's not normalized within society. It's startling. It's stigmatized and it's a radical experience of opening in a system that's been closed. So I think it's on all of us to create some kind of a reality where the conversation about how angry I am or I'm at level four in my anger quotient, or I've got grief at Level 2 or however you want to language it, begins part of our day to day conversation. So when people cry in a coffee shop people don't look at them and make faces. They come over and they sit around them and they hold the space for them. Those kinds of things need to happen. I believe they might happen and they are beginning to happen in some ways but not happening quickly enough.  Neil Sattin  Yeah. Yeah. I agree.  Jeff Brown  So you and I, so you and I are good examples. So you know it happens between people you know. I mean we're damaged in relationship and we heal in relationships, so here are you and I. I read the meditation not even thinking you might be having an experience of it. You have an experience of it. So then the question is how can I hold the space for that experience for you, so that you actually make some progress internally, resolutionally in a 10 or 15 minute period and model that to humanity and then as we model that to humanity, especially as men, which is so important to model this to men, in particular. And not only but in particular, then we begin to make progress.  Neil Sattin  Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really true. That's really true. And it feels true also in terms of my experience. You know when I take something like a moment like this and then go out into the world then I start feeling those innately, I'm putting, I'm making the little quote marks with my fingers, those spiritual unity consciousness type experiences and I think they emerge from being really deeply in touch with...  Jeff Brown  Your feelings.  Neil Sattin  Yeah. My feelings these real parts of me.  Jeff Brown  Yeah. This is... I'm not opposed to unity consciousness but I'm not interested in a unity consciousness experience that is limited to a transcendent field. I want my connection to the everything to come from the heart of the body itself and the emotional body. And then it feels like a more sustainable experience. And it actually feels like a more expansive experience for me. And I also feel safer because I haven't had to bifurcate my consciousness to have that experience. So now I'm afraid to come back down to earth and I'm going to crash at some point because you know I'm not bridging the two. If I start from within the body... So, so you know in interacting with Michael in the book was a kind of one of my struggles. It was like, what he's calling awakening or transcendence is something that's very different, may be very different from what I experienced as awakening or transcendence. Because I did it from within my body, my feet grounded on the earth plane. So are we even talking about the same experience? His feels flight, you're more kind of motivated by or intended in the direction of getting away from something, whereas mine felt like it was about really trying to be here for all of it. You know the real "Be Here Now" the one that actually starts within my body, not renaming myself, as Ram Dass did, but as Jeff Brown. Jeff Brown with Jeff Brown story. With my bubbie Frannie Perlove . With my grandfather Zeyta Deela Perlove.  Neil Sattin  I'm just laughing...  Jeff Brown  With my very difficult mother Barbara Brown. All of that is real. That is not not spiritual. That is so spiritual that's my lineage. That's my ancestry. That's my flesh and bones baby. And if I'm not in my flesh and bones there's no possible way I can access an awakening consciousness.  Neil Sattin  I'm just laughing because I'm thinking of the place in the book where you talk about Eckhart totally changing his name and then...  Jeff Brown  Yeah his name is Ulrich. Neil Sattin  Right. And then like if names aren't important, then why are people changing their names?  Jeff Brown  Yeah yeah. He's got this quote about like you know "formlessness over form," it's like, well you know, and "ego is the enemy of the sacred," whatever all these people are talking about. And then they change their names. Well clearly it's important enough for them to take on another name in order to disconnect from their birth -- their name of origin. And you know, I understand the purpose that serves it gives a lot of people a break from what it meant to be, their, their origins. But because their origins are them and their origins are encoded in their bones and in their cells. Changing the name can be a temporary reprieve. But ultimately you still got to come back down to do the work inside of "Ulrich Tolle" and, Ram Dass has to still do the work that is Richard Alpert and Ram Dass  wouldn't disagree with that, I think. You know and that's everywhere in the community. Bhagavan Das's real name was Kermit Michael Riggs. He's walking around carrying everything that's Kermit Michael Riggs. He can call himself whatever he wants, he's still carrying Kermit Michael Riggs and he is Kermit Michael Riggs. So I think you know, if we're going to go down into the body, into the feelings. And I realized because we don't have templates we only have a few models, a few techniques developed, it's very difficult to invite people in this direction because then how do we get them there to stay there because there aren't that many integrated models, most of what we've been calling spirituality is bifurcated and if you really look closely, even yoga was... If you look at its origins it's called "Yoke"  It means unity. But really what they're talking about is a version of unity that gets you away from and perfects the toxic body beast again. It's still dissociative. It's still the bypass. And what we need now and what I try to ignite and support in the call to action is: people, all the people, young people out there who were interested in somatic psych, a lot of them going into inclusivity, begin to co-create models that unite these various techniques that pull us up and out or in a way to look at ourselves through a more expansive lens, whatever we call it, with the desire to be deeply living within our body and healing the trauma that obstructs our consciousness. And finding a way to weave transcendence and imminence into the holy holy what I call a "We-stern" consciousness. The quest for unity consciousness and essence fundamental to Eastern traditions and the quest for a healthy self concept, and a work through, an embodied experience of the moment, that's more fundamental to Western consciousness. And when we find that weave, then we're really going to be here for our awakening.  Neil Sattin  So I'd like to spend. Our last few minutes together today bringing this into the realm of relationship. And what I'm thinking of is how, in your book, The Evolution of this starts with being in the body and and there are a few other exercises that you offer that are all about accessing what's happened, the material that's happening within you now. And then that leads to this place of that being able to fuel a sense of who we actually are, beyond who we think we are and and mining ourselves for that, the uh, I forget the term that you use for it. But for those aspects of us that are about who we are uniquely able to be in this lifetime in this body. And I think for a lot of people there's this question of their journey found them, let's say to this place of relationship with this person, and then they start wondering well how do I know if this is a true connection, where we can grow each other, versus one where we're just going to be trapped in our woundedness together? So I'm curious to know how you would connect this body centered awareness with that question of: Is this the right person? Is this the right choice? Is this like, is this the work worth doing? Because we have all our own material that's right there for us, and then we're in, we can be in choice about the material we want to work on with another human.  Jeff Brown  Yeah I mean, I mean so the distinction let's say between "woundmates" and "soulmates," or something. Yeah, I mean, I think that you know, I think one of the dangers of the therapeutic revolution with respect to the shadow work that I am encouraging people to do, is that we make the mistake of thinking that every trigger filled connection is worth our while. I don't believe that. That has certainly not been my experience. There, you know, there are certain criterion that would determine whether or not it's worth our while and whether it isn't. And one of the most obvious ones is whether both people are willing to do the shadow work, is the most basic level question, you know. Because if, if they're not if one of them isn't, then you have a problem. You either adapt your consciousness kind of lowest common denominator to the vibration of the person who doesn't want to do the work or you walk away. But even in an experience I've been in experiences where there was a willingness for two people, myself and the other to do the deeper shadow work. But the relationship was like a nexus for so many triggers, both very obviously, individually rooted in individual experience, and all kinds of inexplicable... You know it's so difficult to language collective, ancestral, familial material, that it didn't matter how much work we did therapeutically, there was no way it was ever going to become anything other than painful. And I do not believe that we need to perpetually live in suffering in order to become conscious. I mean, we have to do work within the pain material for sure. So, I think that you know as you move into this kind of consciousness, authentic relating more deeply attuned to your material and the others, you have to ask the question, is this the kind of experience where for whatever reason without having to judge it, perpetually, we're not going to be able to move our way through this to transformation in a way that feels healthy positive and forward moving? Or is this the kind of connection that has the hope of becoming what I call a "wholemate," you know a connection that really has that more subtle, essential, soulful quality to it. And the same time is grounded in the real world in the day to day life experience and also in the working through the shadow material in a way that's forward moving. And you have to always ask that question, because not every connection, even with the best of intentions is a connection that's going to allow you to grow and evolve.  Neil Sattin  In your book you offer "the beloved meditation exercise" and I don't think we necessarily have the time and space to go through that whole thing right now. But I think it's it's actually a great, it's a great way I think to explore that question from a centered place.  Jeff Brown  Yeah. And from an embodied place. Not as a concept. You know, I had a cousin who kept asking me if a relationship, every relationship he'd say he'd asked me if it was a fit. Like I knew I would say, well you know I'd say I don't know, how do you feel? He go, "Well I think..." And I'd go: You're not answering it from I think you keep trying it's not working you need to go into your body. He didn't want to go into his body. He was very, very detached from his body and only when he finally did have a forced, kind of a forced embodiment experience, as the trauma built and built and built into kind of like a breakdown. Did he actually come to access the answers that he actually had and always knew and always carried as to whether a particular connection he was in was a fit for him. It has to happen all of it inside the body so with the beloved meditation, my effort in a way was to try to invite people inside of that temple in order to ask that primary question whether or not that connections really a fit going forward.  Neil Sattin  Right. And it's questions like, now I have it in front of me: Is this person still part of my future? Are there still lessons we need to learn from each other? Or are we complete together? Are there lessons I now need to learn on my own outside of this present relational form? Are we meant to walk together in the coming moments? Or is it time to take leave of each other? I mean these are great questions and they have to be answered from a place where you're fully...  Jeff Brown  Feeling.  Neil Sattin  Exactly. Like if they're, if those answers are coming from a place of fear then we already know what the answers are gonna be.  Jeff Brown  You can, you can answer a question about whether someone's a fit for you from your mind if you want to do a practical pros and cons list or something. But if you're asking the question of how you feel you can't answer that question conceptually, you have to enter into that very scary terrain for most of us which is the emotional and physical body. And to me, they're kind of synonymous, and drop down into that and let your body tell you what your answers are. And that's why a lot of people remain stuck, you know, and then they go and they go to a workshop experience, that has in it a body component at the end of it they know whether or not to end their relationship or not, or to go deeper because they finally access their body which is very hard to do in our cultural, overstimulated, survive, by your wits, culture. We have to have an experience of the body in order to figure out what direction to walk in our lives.  Neil Sattin  Yeah and I'm... It's interesting for me. We, Chloe and I, actually have this whole practice of using muscle testing and kinesiology to to tap into the body wisdom. And at the same time, I'm, I'm curious to see how these deeper and deeper emotional excavations will inform the body's wisdom, when we're asking those questions.  Jeff Brown  Yeah. Yeah. There's such important questions and they're not just about relationships. They're about, you know, I use the term, "truthaches," in the book, in "Soulshaping," because there are many indicators we're off-path and the way we again determine that, is we do something embodied, whatever that happens to be. Osho's dynamic meditation, holotropic breathwork, some Somatic Experiencing work. You know, bioenergetics your core energetic sessions, core energetics is amazing also and something you know that allows you to really enliven the body and let the body speak its truth. It wants to. And that's what it's built for.  Neil Sattin  Right you've got to help your body speak, and then tune yourself so that you're actually listening to what your body's saying.  Jeff Brown  Right on.  Neil Sattin  Well, Jeff I really appreciate you're here being here to join us again on Relationship Alive to talk about your work the book, "Grounded Spirituality," is a fascinating journey of a book and I appreciate that you gave me the time because we were actually in dialogue about when to do this conversation, that you gave me the time to really explore it, and try things out and it was helpful for me in my personal life and in being able to have this conversation with you. Of course because it's a really long book we could talk a lot longer, but I think I always have that feeling with you honestly that there's, there's always more to say which leaves me excited for the next conversation.  Jeff Brown  Great.  Neil Sattin  So thank you so much for joining us here today. And if people want to find out a little bit more obviously, they can pick up the book "Grounded Spirituality," and how else can they find out about you and your work?  Jeff Brown  They can check out soul-shaping-dot-com, my older site. There's some course downloads and things there are lots of stuff to read. Soul-Shaping-Institute-dot-com. I've got a couple of writing courses coming up writing your way home courses and my new Jeff-Brown-dot-co, web site will be up soon. I'm very excited about that and start doing a lot more video, start a podcast and all that and just join me on Facebook and Instagram and there all the time and interactive. And thank you Neil. I appreciate your support.  Neil Sattin  My pleasure. And just a quick additional plug for your writing course. Those are all about using writing as a vehicle for healing and finding your authentic expressed, grounded voice, right? Jeff Brown  Absolutely. I hold a very tight and safe container for people to excavate their material and write through it, and bring it in the direction of healing without any emphasis on perfect writing or perfect grammar any of that stuff. It's... There are some people who do the course and don't join the Facebook private group and go off and write and write books and a number of my students have been published but the Facebook group component, which is about 60 percent of the student body for each course, is really focused on helping to support one another to just say and to express the things they've never ever felt permission to express before so it's a really beautiful experience.  Neil Sattin  Such important work. And again if you are interested in finding out more, you can get all the links to Jeff's websites etc. through the show notes page which you can get at, Neil-Sattin- dot-com-slash-grounded, as in "Grounded Spirituality, where you can text the word "Passion" to the number 3-3-4-4-4 and follow the instructions. And thanks again Jeff for being with us today.  Jeff Brown  Thank you Neil. Appreciate it.   

Tag along as we visit the oldest Spanish land grant in California. Hear the echoes through thick-walled adobe. Witness pitched battles on horseback. Listen to experimental music off cassettes. Peter Dodge, Secret Path, David B, Doty, Funharm, Polyhymnia, Bhagavan Das, Jeff Defty.

In this episode I speak with Bhagavan Das, who became famous in the early 1970s after Ram Dass featured him in the book that started the American yoga boom, Be Here Now. His fame led to him becoming something of a rockstar in the burgeoning spiritual scene, leading kirtans for thousands of people all over the world, gaining followers and groupies and infamy as a “spiritual playboy”. Recently, Bhagavan Das released an open letter on Facebook acknowledging and apologizing for his mistreatment of women during this time, and is actively engaging in a campaign to open up a dialogue around this issue, in an attempt to right past wrongs and learn from his mistakes. His hashtag for this campaign is #morehearnow, which emphasizes the importance of listening as we move forward on the path toward reconciliation and healing the male/female dynamic in our culture and the world.Bhagavan’s website: http://www.bhagavandas.comOutro music: “Nature Boy” by eden ahbezSupport the Podcast!1. Leave a review on iTunes, or share with your friends on social media2. Become a Patreon supporter at http://patreon.com/brianjamesteaching and gain access to podcast extras and hours of yoga practice resources including vinyasa sequences, breathwork, chanting and guided meditations.3. Leave a one-time donation at http://paypal.me/medicinepathyogaAbout Brian JamesBrian James is a yoga teacher, integrative coach, musician and artist currently living in Montréal, Canada with his wife, astrologer Debbie Stapleton and their Boston Terrier, Kingston (RIP Sweetie). He has been exploring the intersection of music, yoga and shamanism for over 20 years.medicinepathpodcast.combrianjamesyoga.cominstagram.com/brianjames_medicinepathtags: bhagavan das, neem karoli baba, ram dass, spirituality, sex, yoga, tantra

This episode of the podcast features the one, the only, the truly unique and powerful force that is Bhagavan Das. Our hour long conversation weaves in and out of the nature of yoga, the self and spiritual practice in a way that only he can. Told through the lens of Bhagavan Das's own story of transformation that began with his leaving for India in 1965, I discovered that it's nearly impossible to put into words the energy that swirls around this man. He is truly one of the most authentic characters to stem from the greater counter culture movement of the 60's. Eastern spirituality as we know it in the West would not be what is today if it were not for the karamas of Bhagavan Das. Melt into this episode, you'll be glad you did. Intro: Listen closely for a chance to win two passes to Bioneers 2018!! Bhagavan Das I left America for India in 1963 to find my Guru. I was the the first American to live in the jungle of the Himalyas as a hermit-sadhu. I was given the Holy Name of Ram by Bhramanada Saraswati through his disciple Mahish Yogi. I went off alone to the caves in the mountains to meditate. I then came to meet Swami Chaitanya Prakashananda Tirth who gave me tapas to fast and pray for God's Grace. After a year of fasting, prayer and intense purification I met my Sat-Guru the Great Mahasiddha Neem Karoli Baba. I then lived with my Guru, side by side for many years. Then one day because of the tantric path that he seemed to know I must travel and the many karmic connections due to ripen, he sent me away. So I went towards Tibet to go deeper deeper and then beyond with the last living Yogis from high in the mountain peaks of Tibet and Nepal. During my time with the Tibetan Yogis I was the first to meet and live with Lama Kalu the Guru of the 16th Karmapa. He gave me the Essense Mahamudra Transmission, mind to mind. I recieved the Mother Light from His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche and then the Vajra Yogini directly from the Karmapa in Sikkhim. I lived with Yogi Chen who explained all the details to me in english in his hermitage in Kalingpong. When on pilgrimage to the holy Bodhanath Stupa in Kathmandu I met and became the Guru of Richard Alpert who was to become Ram Dass after I brought him to Neem Karoli Baba. I am here now by the grace of the Guru Dev Dakini. She is the Mother Light always guiding me on the true path of Bodhichitta. This is It for Now.

Jai Ram Ransom or Jim Ransom as he was known back in the ‘60s and ‘70s started his musical career at the Gaslight Café in Greenwich Village, playing alongside artists like Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs. However, in the early ‘70s Jai Ram decided that he had have enough of the east coast scene, took his guitar in hand and headed for Denver, Colorado. Once at place with the local folk scene he and a fellow New Yorker Laura Benson started the folk and bluegrass label Biscuit City, which over the coming six years recorded over twenty records worth of folk, singer-songwriter, bluegrass and dulcimer music. In 1979 Jai Ram sold the label and continued on his own. Soon after he moved to the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram in Taos, New Mexico, to continue the spiritual path he already started back in the ‘60s, It was from there on he dedicated to devote the rest of his life to the guru Neem Karoli Baba. Nowadays he lives in India for most of the time and has just published a book about the maharajji. In the interview we don't only discuss his musical career but also other topics, like spiritual awakening, psychedelics, consciousness, transmigration of souls, Ram Dass, Bhagavan Das, and much more.

The mayor of all things great, my good friend, rock and roll master shaman and Bhakti legend Shiva Baum comes by to do an episode of IAH. We explore friendship, kirtan and The Church of Rock and Roll and why it still matters. NOTE - a very long Amanda Chantal Bacon intro rant. Jump to 10:22 if you want skip it. Shiva Baum has enjoyed a lifelong love affair with music. When he was 19 he began an internship at New York's Sony Music Studios followed by a summer at Columbia Records under the mentorship of then head of A&R David Khane and has never looked back from there. Shiva went on to discover and develop 90's alt rock band VAST who then signed with Elektra Records. Under the tutelage of Raghu Markus, Shiva then transitioned to influential world music label Triloka Records which was a division of Mercury/Polygram. Eventually Shiva became head of A&R working closely with Krishna Das, Jai Uttal and Bhagavan Das as well other world music artists including the Native American gospel group Walela and southern Cuban salsa phenoms Bio Ritmo. Shiva then headed over to Gold Circle records as VP of A&R developing new artists in tandem with working on new releases by seasoned 80's superstars John Waite and Pat Benatar. He has been mentored by industry luminaries Rick Rubin, Danny Goldberg, Jeff Ayeroff, and David Silver. Currently, Shiva is an artist manager, producer and "A&R coach" working closely with new artists BIRA, Brightside, and Clark Graham amongst others following his passion to discover and develop new talent. In addition, he is the main stage MC and head of music programming at the "Coachella of Kirtan" known as Bhakti Fest in Joshua Tree, CA. Shiva is very looking forward to the launch of a sacred music focussed podcast which he'll be hosting this year. https://www.facebook.com/shiva.baum

Listen in as Sister Jenna welcomes Sridhar Silberfein and Sara Ivanhoe who are joining us from Shakti Fest 2015, being held in Joshua Tree, California.  Sridhar, the founder of Bhakti Fest, has been on his spiritual journey for many years.  He has studied hatha yoga with the Indian master, Swami Satchidananda, taught yoga at the revered Integral Yoga Institute and opened socially conscious businesses such as "The Food Chakra," one of the first Natural foods stores in the U.S. He also produced the docudrama, "River of Love," on the life of Amma and has helped to launch the careers of many world music and kirtan artists including Krishna Das, Jai Uttal and Bhagavan Das. In 2009, he started Bhakti Fest in Joshua Tree, California, which has now grown to three festivals yearly. For info & upcoming events, visit www.bhaktifest.com Sara Ivanhoe is the Yoga Spokesperson for Weight Watchers. She began teaching in 1995 and is the instructor for the “Yoga for Dummies” series, the “Crunch Yoga” series as well as the collaboration with Russell Simmons “Yoga Live.”  She had an extended run on Fit TV with “All Star Workouts” and on Exercise TV with “Yoga on the Edge.”  Sara is highlighted in the acclaimed documentary “Titans of Yoga” and “Women of Bhakti.”  Visit www.yoganation.com Get the Off the Grid Into the Heart CD by Sister Jenna. Like America Meditating on FB & follow us on Twitter.

Sridhar Silberfein joins Sister Jenna on the America Meditating Radio Show to discuss Bhakti Fest - known for hosting the largest line up of kirtan, master yoga instructors, and spiritual teachers. Sridhar, the founder of Bhakti Fest, has been on his spiritual journey for many years.  He has studied hatha yoga with the Indian master, Swami Satchidananda, taught yoga at the revered Integral Yoga Institute and opened socially conscious businesses such as "The Food Chakra," one of the first Natural foods stores in the U.S. and a Natural Cosmetic Company. He also produced the docudrama, "River of Love," on the life of Amma, which raised money for her many charitable projects and co-founded the Triloka recording label with Krishna Das and Paul Sloman and helped to launch the careers of many world music and kirtan artists including Krishna Das, Jai Uttal and Bhagavan Das. In 2009, exactly 40 years after an auspicious invocation at Woodstock, Sridhar's lifelong dream was realized. He gathered thousands together to chant the names of the Divine at Bhakti Fest in Joshua Tree, California.  Known as "The Spiritual Woodstock of the Millennium," Bhakti Fest has grown to three festivals yearly, with pre and post festival concerts, events and fundraisers nationally. The next Bhakti Fest will be held on September 4th - 7th in Joshua Tree, California.  For more info, visit www.bhaktifest.com Get the OFF TO WORK CD by Sister Jenna. Like America Meditating on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Jeff Brown did all the things he was supposed to do to become successful in the eyes of the world. It had been Jeff's lifelong dream to practice criminal law and search for the truth in the courtroom. But then, on the verge of opening a law practice, he heard a little voice inside telling him to stop, just stop. With great difficulty, he honored this voice and began a heartfelt quest for the truth that lived within him. Although he didn't realize it at the time, Jeff was actually questing for his innate image, the essential being that he came into this lifetime to embody. He was searching for his authentic face. After publishing his first book, writing a series of inspirations for ABC'S ‘Good Morning America' in early 2010, and appearing on Fox News.com and dozens of radio shows, Jeff's viral blog "Apologies to the Divine Feminine," catapulted him to greater notoriety. Soon thereafter, he released his first film – Karmageddon - an award winning spiritual documentary that highlights his journey with spiritual teacher Bhagavan Das. Jeff is the author of three books, Soulshaping: A Journey of Self-Creation, Ascending with Both Feet on the Ground, and Love It Forward. He has appeared on numerous TV and radio interviews and his works have been printed in many publications.  Visit www.soulshaping.com Get the OFF TO WORK CD by Sister Jenna  Like America Meditating on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter

More spectacular experiences with sacred musicians: Bob Marley, Krishna Das, Jai Uttal and Bhagavan Das. Both frightening and enlightening times with world, trance and the beginnings of chant and kirtan music is explored. David and Raghu discuss the practice of opening the heart by chanting, where no thinking is necessary. 

Raghu arrives at his first ashram in India, disappointed because he didn't find the answers he was looking for. Meanwhile, Ram Dass ventures out of his comfort zone and follows Bhagavan Das on a transformative journey through India, leading to a very special meeting at the Kainchi ashram.

A former criminal lawyer and psychotherapist, Jeff Brown is the author of "Soulshaping: A Journey of Self-Creation," recently published by North Atlantic Books. Endorsed by authors Elizabeth Lesser and Ram Dass, "Soulshaping" is Brown's autobiography — an inner travelogue of his journey from archetypal male warrior to a more surrendered path. He is also the author of the soon to be released quotes book 'Ascending with both feet on the Ground' and the co-producer and key journeyor in the soon to be released spiritual documentary 'Karmageddon'. The film relates to spiritual teacher Bhagavan Das, and includes unforgettable interviews with Ram Dass, Seane Corn, Deva Premal, Wah, David Life and Robert Gass. You can connect with Jeff's work at www.soulshaping.com