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What if the most transformative thing you can do for your writing craft and author business is to face what you fear? How can you can find gold in your Shadow in the year ahead? In this episode, I share chapters from Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words. In the intro, curated book boxes from Bridgerton's Julia Quinn; Google's agentic shopping, and powering Apple's Siri; ChatGPT Ads; and Claude CoWork. Balancing Certainty and Uncertainty [MoonShots with Tony Robbins]; and three trends for authors with me and Orna Ross [Self-Publishing with ALLi Podcast]; plus, Bones of the Deep, Business for Authors, and Indie Author Lab. This show is supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn  Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, and memoir as J.F. Penn. She's also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker. What is the Shadow? The ‘creative wound' and the Shadow in writing The Shadow in traditional publishing The Shadow in self-publishing or being an indie author The Shadow in work The Shadow in money You can find Writing the Shadow in all formats on all stores, as well as special edition, workbook and bundles at www.TheCreativePenn.com/shadowbook Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words The following chapters are excerpted from Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words by Joanna Penn. Introduction. What is the Shadow? “How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole.” —C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul We all have a Shadow side and it is the work of a lifetime to recognise what lies within and spin that base material into gold. Think of it as a seedling in a little pot that you're given when you're young. It's a bit misshapen and weird, not something you would display in your living room, so you place it in a dark corner of the basement. You don't look at it for years. You almost forget about it. Then one day you notice tendrils of something wild poking up through the floorboards. They're ugly and don't fit with your Scandi-minimalist interior design. You chop the tendrils away and pour weedkiller on what's left, trying to hide the fact that they were ever there. But the creeping stems keep coming. At some point, you know you have to go down there and face the wild thing your seedling has become. When you eventually pluck up enough courage to go down into the basement, you discover that the plant has wound its roots deep into the foundations of your home. Its vines weave in and out of the cracks in the walls, and it has beautiful flowers and strange fruit. It holds your world together. Perhaps you don't need to destroy the wild tendrils. Perhaps you can let them wind up into the light and allow their rich beauty to weave through your home. It will change the look you have so carefully cultivated, but maybe that's just what the place needs. The Shadow in psychology Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychologist and the founder of analytical psychology. He described the Shadow as an unconscious aspect of the human personality, those parts of us that don't match up to what is expected of us by family and society, or to our own ideals. The Shadow is not necessarily evil or illegal or immoral, although of course it can be. It's also not necessarily caused by trauma, abuse, or any other severely damaging event, although again, it can be. It depends on the individual. What is in your Shadow is based on your life and your experiences, as well as your culture and society, so it will be different for everyone. Psychologist Connie Zweig, in The Inner Work of Age, explains, “The Shadow is that part of us that lies beneath or behind the light of awareness. It contains our rejected, unacceptable traits and feelings. It contains our hidden gifts and talents that have remained unexpressed or unlived. As Jung put it, the essence of the Shadow is pure gold.” To further illustrate the concept, Robert Bly, in A Little Book on the Human Shadow,uses the following metaphor: “When we are young, we carry behind us an invisible bag, into which we stuff any feelings, thoughts, or behaviours that bring disapproval or loss of love—anger, tears, neediness, laziness. By the time we go to school, our bags are already a mile long. In high school, our peer groups pressure us to stuff the bags with even more—individuality, sexuality, spontaneity, different opinions. We spend our life until we're twenty deciding which parts of ourselves to put into the bag and we spend the rest of our lives trying to get them out again.” As authors, we can use what's in the ‘bag' to enrich our writing — but only if we can access it. My intention with this book is to help you venture into your Shadow and bring some of what's hidden into the light and into your words. I'll reveal aspects of my Shadow in these pages but ultimately, this book is about you. Your Shadow is unique. There may be elements we share, but much will be different. Each chapter has questions for you to consider that may help you explore at least the edges of your Shadow, but it's not easy. As Jung said, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” But take heart, Creative. You don't need courage when things are easy. You need it when you know what you face will be difficult, but you do it anyway. We are authors. We know how to do hard things. We turn ideas into books. We manifest thoughts into ink on paper. We change lives with our writing. First, our own, then other people's. It's worth the effort to delve into Shadow, so I hope you will join me on the journey. The creative wound and the Shadow in writing “Whatever pain you can't get rid of, make it your creative offering.” —Susan Cain, Bittersweet  The more we long for something, the more extreme our desire, the more likely it is to have a Shadow side. For those of us who love books, the author life may well be a long-held dream and thus, it is filled with Shadow. Books have long been objects of desire, power, and authority. They hold a mythic status in our lives. We escaped into stories as children; we studied books at school and college; we read them now for escape and entertainment, education and inspiration. We collect beautiful books to put on our shelves. We go to them for solace and answers to the deepest questions of life. Writers are similarly held in high esteem. They shape culture, win literary prizes, give important speeches, and are quoted in the mainstream media. Their books are on the shelves in libraries and bookstores. Writers are revered, held up as rare, talented creatures made separate from us by their brilliance and insight. For bibliophile children, books were everything and to write one was a cherished dream. To become an author? Well, that would mean we might be someone special, someone worthy. Perhaps when you were young, you thought the dream of being a writer was possible — then you told someone about it. That's probably when you heard the first criticism of such a ridiculous idea, the first laughter, the first dismissal. So you abandoned the dream, pushed the idea of being a writer into the Shadow, and got on with your life. Or if it wasn't then, it came later, when you actually put pen to paper and someone — a parent, teacher, partner, or friend, perhaps even a literary agent or publisher, someone whose opinion you valued — told you it was worthless. Here are some things you might have heard: Writing is a hobby. Get a real job. You're not good enough. You don't have any writing talent. You don't have enough education. You don't know what you're doing. Your writing is derivative / unoriginal / boring / useless / doesn't make sense. The genre you write in is dead / worthless / unacceptable / morally wrong / frivolous / useless.  Who do you think you are? No one would want to read what you write. You can't even use proper grammar, so how could you write a whole book? You're wasting your time. You'll never make it as a writer. You shouldn't write those things (or even think about those things). Why don't you write something nice? Insert other derogatory comment here! Mark Pierce describes the effect of this experience in his book The Creative Wound, which “occurs when an event, or someone's actions or words, pierce you, causing a kind of rift in your soul. A comment—even offhand and unintentional—is enough to cause one.” He goes on to say that such words can inflict “damage to the core of who we are as creators. It is an attack on our artistic identity, resulting in us believing that whatever we make is somehow tainted or invalid, because shame has convinced us there is something intrinsically tainted or invalid about ourselves.” As adults, we might brush off such wounds, belittling them as unimportant in the grand scheme of things. We might even find ourselves saying the same words to other people. After all, it's easier to criticise than to create. But if you picture your younger self, bright eyed as you lose yourself in your favourite book, perhaps you might catch a glimpse of what you longed for before your dreams were dashed on the rocks of other people's reality. As Mark Pierce goes on to say, “A Creative Wound has the power to delay our pursuits—sometimes for years—and it can even derail our lives completely… Anything that makes us feel ashamed of ourselves or our work can render us incapable of the self-expression we yearn for.” This is certainly what happened to me, and it took decades to unwind. Your creative wounds will differ to mine but perhaps my experience will help you explore your own. To be clear, your Shadow may not reside in elements of horror as mine do, but hopefully you can use my example to consider where your creative wounds might lie. “You shouldn't write things like that.” It happened at secondary school around 1986 or 1987, so I would have been around eleven or twelve years old. English was one of my favourite subjects and the room we had our lessons in looked out onto a vibrant garden. I loved going to that class because it was all about books, and they were always my favourite things. One day, we were asked to write a story. I can't remember the specifics of what the teacher asked us to write, but I fictionalised a recurring nightmare. I stood in a dark room. On one side, my mum and my brother, Rod, were tied up next to a cauldron of boiling oil, ready to be thrown in. On the other side, my dad and my little sister, Lucy, were threatened with decapitation by men with machetes. I had to choose who would die. I always woke up, my heart pounding, before I had to choose. Looking back now, it clearly represented an internal conflict about having to pick sides between the two halves of my family. Not an unexpected issue from a child of divorce. Perhaps these days, I might have been sent to the school counsellor, but it was the eighties and I don't think we even had such a thing. Even so, the meaning of the story isn't the point. It was the reaction to it that left scars. “You shouldn't write things like that,” my teacher said, and I still remember her look of disappointment, even disgust. Certainly judgment. She said my writing was too dark. It wasn't a proper story. It wasn't appropriate for the class. As if horrible things never happened in stories — or in life. As if literature could not include dark tales. As if the only acceptable writing was the kind she approved of. We were taught The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie that year, which says a lot about the type of writing considered appropriate. Or perhaps the issue stemmed from the school motto, “So hateth she derknesse,” from Chaucer's The Legend of Good Women: “For fear of night, so she hates the darkness.” I had won a scholarship to a private girls' school, and their mission was to turn us all into proper young ladies. Horror was never on the curriculum. Perhaps if my teacher had encouraged me to write my darkness back then, my nightmares would have dissolved on the page. Perhaps if we had studied Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or H.P. Lovecraft stories, or Bram Stoker's Dracula, I could have embraced the darker side of literature earlier in my life. My need to push darker thoughts into my Shadow was compounded by my (wonderful) mum's best intentions. We were brought up on the principles of The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale and she tried to shield me and my brother from anything harmful or horrible. We weren't allowed to watch TV much, and even the British school drama Grange Hill was deemed inappropriate. So much of what I've achieved is because my mum instilled in me a “can do” attitude that anything is possible. I'm so grateful to her for that. (I love you, Mum!) But all that happy positivity, my desire to please her, to be a good girl, to make my teachers proud, and to be acceptable to society, meant that I pushed my darker thoughts into Shadow. They were inappropriate. They were taboo. They must be repressed, kept secret, and I must be outwardly happy and positive at all times. You cannot hold back the darkness “The night is dark and full of terrors.” —George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords It turned out that horror was on the curriculum, much of it in the form of educational films we watched during lessons. In English Literature, we watched Romeo drink poison and Juliet stab herself in Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet. In Religious Studies, we watched Jesus beaten, tortured, and crucified in The Greatest Story Ever Told, and learned of the variety of gruesome ways that Christian saints were martyred. In Classical Civilisation, we watched gladiators slaughter each other in Spartacus. In Sex Education at the peak of the AIDS crisis in the mid-'80s, we were told of the many ways we could get infected and die. In History, we studied the Holocaust with images of skeletal bodies thrown into mass graves, medical experiments on humans, and grainy videos of marching soldiers giving the Nazi salute. One of my first overseas school field trips was to the World War I battlegrounds of Flanders Fields in Belgium, where we studied the inhuman conditions of the trenches, walked through mass graves, and read war poetry by candlelight. As John McCrae wrote: We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. Did the teachers not realise how deeply a sensitive teenager might feel the darkness of that place? Or have I always been unusual in that places of blood echo deep inside me? And the horrors kept coming. We lived in Bristol, England back then and I learned at school how the city had been part of the slave trade, its wealth built on the backs of people stolen from their homes, sold, and worked to death in the colonies. I had been at school for a year in Malawi, Africa and imagined the Black people I knew drowning, being beaten, and dying on those ships. In my teenage years, the news was filled with ethnic cleansing, mass rape, and massacres during the Balkan wars, and images of bodies hacked apart during the Rwandan genocide. Evil committed by humans against other humans was not a historical aberration. I'm lucky and I certainly acknowledge my privilege. Nothing terrible or horrifying has happened to me — but bad things certainly happen to others. I wasn't bullied or abused. I wasn't raped or beaten or tortured. But you don't have to go through things to be afraid of them, and for your imagination to conjure the possibility of them. My mum doesn't read my fiction now as it gives her nightmares (Sorry, Mum!). I know she worries that somehow she's responsible for my darkness, but I've had a safe and (mostly) happy life, for which I'm truly grateful. But the world is not an entirely safe and happy place, and for a sensitive child with a vivid imagination, the world is dark and scary. It can be brutal and violent, and bad things happen, even to good people. No parent can shield their child from the reality of the world. They can only help them do their best to live in it, develop resilience, and find ways to deal with whatever comes. Story has always been a way that humans have used to learn how to live and deal with difficult times. The best authors, the ones that readers adore and can't get enough of, write their darkness into story to channel their experience, and help others who fear the same. In an interview on writing the Shadow on The Creative Penn Podcast, Michaelbrent Collings shared how he incorporated a personally devastating experience into his writing:  “My wife and I lost a child years back, and that became the root of one of my most terrifying books, Apparition. It's not terrifying because it's the greatest book of all time, but just the concept that there's this thing out there… like a demon, and it consumes the blood and fear of the children, and then it withdraws and consumes the madness of the parents… I wrote that in large measure as a way of working through what I was experiencing.” I've learned much from Michaelbrent. I've read many of his (excellent) books and he's been on my podcast multiple times talking about his depression and mental health issues, as well as difficulties in his author career. Writing darkness is not in Michaelbrent's Shadow and only he can say what lies there for him. But from his example, and from that of other authors, I too learned how to write my Shadow into my books. Twenty-three years after that English lesson, in November 2009, I did NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, and wrote five thousand words of what eventually became Stone of Fire, my first novel. In the initial chapter, I burned a nun alive on the ghats of Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges River. I had watched the bodies burn by night on pyres from a boat bobbing in the current a few years before, and the image was still crystal clear in my mind. The only way to deal with how it made me feel about death was to write about it — and since then, I've never stopped writing. Returning to the nightmare from my school days, I've never had to choose between the two halves of my family, but the threat of losing them remains a theme in my fiction. In my ARKANE thriller series, Morgan Sierra will do anything to save her sister and her niece. Their safety drives her to continue to fight against evil. Our deepest fears emerge in our writing, and that's the safest place for them. I wish I'd been taught how to turn my nightmares into words back at school, but at least now I've learned to write my Shadow onto the page. I wish the same for you. The Shadow in traditional publishing If becoming an author is your dream, then publishing a book is deeply entwined with that. But as Mark Pierce says in The Creative Wound, “We feel pain the most where it matters the most… Desire highlights whatever we consider to be truly significant.” There is a lot of desire around publishing for those of us who love books! It can give you: Validation that your writing is good enough Status and credibility Acceptance by an industry held in esteem  The potential of financial reward and critical acclaim Support from a team of professionals who know how to make fantastic books A sense of belonging to an elite community Pride in achieving a long-held goal, resulting in a confidence boost and self-esteem Although not guaranteed, traditional publishing can give you all these things and more, but as with everything, there is a potential Shadow side. Denying it risks the potential of being disillusioned, disappointed, and even damaged. But remember, forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes. Preparation can help you avoid potential issues and help you feel less alone if you encounter them. The myth of success… and the reality of experience There is a pervasive myth of success in the traditional publishing industry, perpetuated by media reporting on brand name and breakout authors, those few outliers whose experience is almost impossible to replicate. Because of such examples, many new traditionally published authors think that their first book will hit the top of the bestseller charts or win an award, as well as make them a million dollars — or at least a big chunk of cash. They will be able to leave their job, write in a beautiful house overlooking the ocean, and swan around the world attending conferences, while writing more bestselling books. It will be a charmed life. But that is not the reality. Perhaps it never was. Even so, the life of a traditionally published author represents a mythic career with the truth hidden behind a veil of obscurity. In April 2023, The Bookseller in the UK reported that “more than half of authors (54%) responding to a survey on their experiences of publishing their debut book have said the process negatively affected their mental health. Though views were mixed, just 22%… described a positive experience overall… Among the majority who said they had a negative experience of debut publication, anxiety, stress, depression and ‘lowered' self-esteem were cited, with lack of support, guidance or clear and professional communication from their publisher among the factors that contributed.” Many authors who have negative experiences around publishing will push them into the Shadow with denial or self-blame, preferring to keep the dream alive. They won't talk about things in public as this may negatively affect their careers, but private discussions are often held in the corners of writing conferences or social media groups online. Some of the issues are as follows: Repeated rejection by agents and publishers may lead to the author thinking they are not good enough as a writer, which can lead to feeling unworthy as a person. If an author gets a deal, the amount of advance and the name and status of the publisher compared to others create a hierarchy that impacts self-esteem. A deal for a book may be much lower than an author might have been expecting, with low or no advance, and the resulting experience with the publisher beneath expectations. The launch process may be disappointing, and the book may appear without fanfare, with few sales and no bestseller chart position. In The Bookseller report, one author described her launch day as “a total wasteland… You have expectations about what publication day will be like, but in reality, nothing really happens.” The book may receive negative reviews by critics or readers or more publicly on social media, which can make an author feel attacked. The book might not sell as well as expected, and the author may feel like it's their fault. Commercial success can sometimes feel tied to self-worth and an author can't help but compare their sales to others, with resulting embarrassment or shame. The communication from the publisher may be less than expected. One author in The Bookseller report said, “I was shocked by the lack of clarity and shared information and the cynicism that underlies the superficial charm of this industry.” There is often more of a focus on debut authors in publishing houses, so those who have been writing and publishing in the midlist for years can feel ignored and undervalued. In The Bookseller report, 48 percent of authors reported “their publisher supported them for less than a year,” with one saying, “I got no support and felt like a commodity, like the team had moved on completely to the next book.” If an author is not successful enough, the next deal may be lower than the last, less effort is made with marketing, and they may be let go. In The Bookseller report, “six authors—debut and otherwise—cited being dropped by their publisher, some with no explanation.” Even if everything goes well and an author is considered successful by others, they may experience imposter syndrome, feeling like a fraud when speaking at conferences or doing book signings. And the list goes on … All these things can lead to feelings of shame, inadequacy, and embarrassment; loss of status in the eyes of peers; and a sense of failure if a publishing career is not successful enough. The author feels like it's their fault, like they weren't good enough — although, of course, the reality is that the conditions were not right at the time. A failure of a book is not a failure of the person, but it can certainly feel like it! When you acknowledge the Shadow, it loses its power Despite all the potential negatives of traditional publishing, if you know what could happen, you can mitigate them. You can prepare yourself for various scenarios and protect yourself from potential fall-out. It's clear from The Bookseller report that too many authors have unrealistic expectations of the industry. But publishers are businesses, not charities. It's not their job to make you feel good as an author. It's their job to sell books and pay you. The best thing they can do is to continue to be a viable business so they can keep putting books on the shelves and keep paying authors, staff, and company shareholders. When you license your creative work to a publisher, you're giving up control of your intellectual property in exchange for money and status. Bring your fears and issues out of the Shadow, acknowledge them, and deal with them early, so they do not get pushed down and re-emerge later in blame and bitterness. Educate yourself on the business of publishing. Be clear on what you want to achieve with any deal. Empower yourself as an author, take responsibility for your career, and you will have a much better experience. The Shadow in self-publishing or being an indie author Self-publishing, or being an independent (indie) author, can be a fantastic, pro-active choice for getting your book into the world. Holding your first book in your hand and saying “I made this” is pretty exciting, and even after more than forty books, I still get excited about seeing ideas in my head turn into a physical product in the world. Self-publishing can give an author: Creative control over what to write, editorial and cover design choices, when and how often to publish, and how to market Empowerment over your author career and the ability to make choices that impact success without asking for permission Ownership and control of intellectual property assets, resulting in increased opportunity around licensing and new markets Independence and the potential for recurring income for the long term Autonomy and flexibility around timelines, publishing options, and the ability to easily pivot into new genres and business models Validation based on positive reader reviews and money earned Personal growth and learning through the acquisition of new skills, resulting in a boost in confidence and self-esteem A sense of belonging to an active and vibrant community of indie authors around the world Being an indie author can give you all this and more, but once again, there is a Shadow side and preparation can help you navigate potential issues. The myth of success… and the reality of experience As with traditional publishing, the indie author world has perpetuated a myth of success in the example of the breakout indie author like E.L. James with Fifty Shades of Grey, Hugh Howey with Wool, or Andy Weir with The Martian. The emphasis on financial success is also fuelled online by authors who share screenshots showing six-figure months or seven-figure years, without sharing marketing costs and other outgoings, or the amount of time spent on the business. Yes, these can inspire some, but it can also make others feel inadequate and potentially lead to bad choices about how to publish and market based on comparison. The indie author world is full of just as much ego and a desire for status and money as traditional publishing. This is not a surprise! Most authors, regardless of publishing choices, are a mix of massive ego and chronic self-doubt. We are human, so the same issues will re-occur. A different publishing method doesn't cure all ills. Some of the issues are as follows: You learn everything you need to know about writing and editing, only to find that you need to learn a whole new set of skills in order to self-publish and market your book. This can take a lot of time and effort you did not expect, and things change all the time so you have to keep learning. Being in control of every aspect of the publishing process, from writing to cover design to marketing, can be overwhelming, leading to indecision, perfectionism, stress, and even burnout as you try to do all the things. You try to find people to help, but building your team is a challenge, and working with others has its own difficulties. People say negative things about self-publishing that may arouse feelings of embarrassment or shame. These might be little niggles, but they needle you, nonetheless. You wonder whether you made the right choice. You struggle with self-doubt and if you go to an event with traditional published authors, you compare yourself to them and feel like an imposter. Are you good enough to be an author if a traditional publisher hasn't chosen you? Is it just vanity to self-publish? Are your books unworthy? Even though you worked with a professional editor, you still get one-star reviews and you hate criticism from readers. You wonder whether you're wasting your time. You might be ripped off by an author services company who promise the world, only to leave you with a pile of printed books in your garage and no way to sell them. When you finally publish your book, it languishes at the bottom of the charts while other authors hit the top of the list over and over, raking in the cash while you are left out of pocket. You don't admit to over-spending on marketing as it makes you ashamed. You resist book marketing and make critical comments about writers who embrace it. You believe that quality rises to the top and if a book is good enough, people will buy it anyway. This can lead to disappointment and disillusionment when you launch your book and it doesn't sell many copies because nobody knows about it. You try to do what everyone advises, but you still can't make decent money as an author. You're jealous of other authors' success and put it down to them ‘selling out' or writing things you can't or ‘using AI' or ‘using a ghostwriter' or having a specific business model you consider impossible to replicate. And the list goes on… When you acknowledge the Shadow, it loses its power Being in control of your books and your author career is a double-edged sword. Traditionally published authors can criticise their publishers or agents or the marketing team or the bookstores or the media, but indie authors have to take responsibility for it all. Sure, we can blame ‘the algorithms' or social media platforms, or criticise other authors for having more experience or more money to invest in marketing, or attribute their success to writing in a more popular genre — but we also know there are always people who do well regardless of the challenges. Once more, we're back to acknowledging and integrating the Shadow side of our choices. We are flawed humans. There will always be good times and bad, and difficulties to offset the high points. This too shall pass, as the old saying goes. I know that being an indie author has plenty of Shadow. I've been doing this since 2008 and despite the hard times, I'm still here. I'm still writing. I'm still publishing. This life is not for everyone, but it's my choice. You must make yours. The Shadow in work You work hard. You make a living. Nothing wrong with that attitude, right? It's what we're taught from an early age and, like so much of life, it's not a problem until it goes to extremes. Not achieving what you want to? Work harder. Can't get ahead? Work harder. Not making a good enough living? Work harder. People who don't work hard are lazy. They don't deserve handouts or benefits. People who don't work hard aren't useful, so they are not valued members of our culture and community. But what about the old or the sick, the mentally ill, or those with disabilities? What about children? What about the unemployed? The under-employed? What about those who are — or will be — displaced by technology, those called “the useless class” by historian Yuval Noah Harari in his book Homo Deus? What if we become one of these in the future? Who am I if I cannot work? The Shadow side of my attitude to work became clear when I caught COVID in the summer of 2021. I was the sickest I'd ever been. I spent two weeks in bed unable to even think properly, and six weeks after that, I was barely able to work more than an hour a day before lying in the dark and waiting for my energy to return. I was limited in what I could do for another six months after that. At times, I wondered if I would ever get better. Jonathan kept urging me to be patient and rest. But I don't know how to rest. I know how to work and how to sleep. I can do ‘active rest,' which usually involves walking a long way or traveling somewhere interesting, but those require a stronger mind and body than I had during those months. It struck me that even if I recovered from the virus, I had glimpsed my future self. One day, I will be weak in body and mind. If I'm lucky, that will be many years away and hopefully for a short time before I die — but it will happen. I am an animal. I will die. My body and mind will pass on and I will be no more. Before then I will be weak. Before then, I will be useless. Before then, I will be a burden. I will not be able to work… But who am I if I cannot work? What is the point of me? I can't answer these questions right now, because although I recognise them as part of my Shadow, I've not progressed far enough to have dealt with them entirely. My months of COVID gave me some much-needed empathy for those who cannot work, even if they want to. We need to reframe what work is as a society, and value humans for different things, especially as technology changes what work even means. That starts with each of us. “Illness, affliction of body and soul, can be life-altering. It has the potential to reveal the most fundamental conflict of the human condition: the tension between our infinite, glorious dreams and desires and our limited, vulnerable, decaying physicality.” —Connie Zweig, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul The Shadow in money In the Greek myth, King Midas was a wealthy ruler who loved gold above all else. His palace was adorned with golden sculptures and furniture, and he took immense pleasure in his riches. Yet, despite his vast wealth, he yearned for more. After doing a favour for Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry, Midas was granted a single wish. Intoxicated by greed, he wished that everything he touched would turn to gold — and it was so. At first, it was a lot of fun. Midas turned everything else in his palace to gold, even the trees and stones of his estate. After a morning of turning things to gold, he fancied a spot of lunch. But when he tried to eat, the food and drink turned to gold in his mouth. He became thirsty and hungry — and increasingly desperate. As he sat in despair on his golden throne, his beloved young daughter ran to comfort him. For a moment, he forgot his wish — and as she wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek, she turned into a golden statue, frozen in precious metal. King Midas cried out to the gods to forgive him, to reverse the wish. He renounced his greed and gave away all his wealth, and his daughter was returned to life. The moral of the story: Wealth and greed are bad. In Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is described as a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner.” He's wealthy but does not share, considering Christmas spending to be frivolous and giving to charity to be worthless. He's saved by a confrontation with his lonely future and becomes a generous man and benefactor of the poor. Wealth is good if you share it with others. The gospel of Matthew, chapter 25: 14-30, tells the parable of the bags of gold, in which a rich man goes on a journey and entrusts his servants with varying amounts of gold. On his return, the servants who multiplied the gold through their efforts and investments are rewarded, while the one who merely returned the gold with no interest is punished: “For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” Making money is good, making more money is even better. If you can't make any money, you don't deserve to have any. Within the same gospel, in Matthew 19:24, Jesus encounters a wealthy man and tells him to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor, which the man is unable to do. Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Wealth is bad. Give it all away and you'll go to heaven. With all these contradictory messages, no wonder we're so conflicted about money! How do you think and feel about money? While money is mostly tied to our work, it's far more than just a transactional object for most people. It's loaded with complex symbolism and judgment handed down by family, religion, and culture. You are likely to find elements of Shadow by examining your attitudes around money. Consider which of the following statements resonate with you or write your own. Money stresses me out. I don't want to talk about it or think about it. Some people hoard money, so there is inequality. Rich people are bad and we should take away their wealth and give it to the poor.  I can never make enough money to pay the bills, or to give my family what I want to provide. Money doesn't grow on trees.  It's wasteful to spend money as you might need it later, so I'm frugal and don't spend money unless absolutely necessary. It is better and more ethical to be poor than to be rich. I want more money. I read books and watch TV shows about rich people because I want to live like that. Sometimes I spend too much on things for a glimpse of what that might be like.  I buy lottery tickets and dream of winning all that money.  I'm jealous of people who have money. I want more of it and I resent those who have it. I'm no good with money. I don't like to look at my bank statement or credit card statement. I live off my overdraft and I'm in debt. I will never earn enough to get out of debt and start saving, so I don't think too much about it. I don't know enough about money. Talking about it makes me feel stupid, so I just ignore it. People like me aren't educated about money.  I need to make more money. If I can make lots of money, then people will look up to me. If I make lots of money, I will be secure, nothing can touch me, I will be safe.  I never want to be poor. I would be ashamed to be poor. I will never go on benefits. My net worth is my self worth. Money is good. We have the best standard of living in history because of the increase in wealth over time. Even the richest kings of the past didn't have what many middle-class people have today in terms of access to food, water, technology, healthcare, education, and more. The richest people give the most money to the poor through taxation and charity, as well as through building companies that employ people and invent new things. The very richest give away much of their fortunes. They provide far more benefit to the world than the poor.  I love money. Money loves me. Money comes easily and quickly to me. I attract money in multiple streams of income. It flows to me in so many ways. I spend money. I invest money. I give money. I'm happy and grateful for all that I receive. The Shadow around money for authors in particular Many writers and other creatives have issues around money and wealth. How often have you heard the following, and which do you agree with? You can't make money with your writing. You'll be a poor author in a garret, a starving artist.  You can't write ‘good quality' books and make money. If you make money writing, you're a hack, you're selling out. You are less worthy than someone who writes only for the Muse. Your books are commercial, not artistic. If you spend money on marketing, then your books are clearly not good enough to sell on their own. My agent / publisher / accountant / partner deals with the money side. I like to focus on the creative side of things. My money story Note: This is not financial or investment advice. Please talk to a professional about your situation. I've had money issues over the years — haven't we all! But I have been through a (long) process to bring money out of my Shadow and into the light. There will always be more to discover, but hopefully my money story will help you, or at least give you an opportunity to reflect. Like most people, I didn't grow up with a lot of money. My parents started out as teachers, but later my mum — who I lived with, along with my brother — became a change management consultant, moving to the USA and earning a lot more. I'm grateful that she moved into business because her example changed the way I saw money and provided some valuable lessons. (1) You can change your circumstances by learning more and then applying that to leverage opportunity into a new job or career Mum taught English at a school in Bristol when we moved back from Malawi, Africa, in the mid '80s but I remember how stressful it was for her, and how little money she made. She wanted a better future for us all, so she took a year out to do a master's degree in management. In the same way, when I wanted to change careers and leave consulting to become an author, I spent time and money learning about the writing craft and the business of publishing. I still invest a considerable chunk on continuous learning, as this industry changes all the time. (2) You might have to downsize in order to leap forward The year my mum did her degree, we lived in the attic of another family's house; we ate a lot of one-pot casserole and our treat was having a Yorkie bar on the walk back from the museum. We wore hand-me-down clothes, and I remember one day at school when another girl said I was wearing her dress. I denied it, of course, but there in back of the dress was her name tag. I still remember her name and I can still feel that flush of shame and embarrassment. I was determined to never feel like that again. But what I didn't realize at the time was that I was also learning the power of downsizing. Mum got her degree and then a new job in management in Bristol. She bought a house, and we settled for a few years. I had lots of different jobs as a teenager. My favourite was working in the delicatessen because we got a free lunch made from delicious produce. After I finished A-levels, I went to the University of Oxford, and my mum and brother moved to the USA for further opportunities. I've downsized multiple times over the years, taking a step back in order to take a step forward. The biggest was in 2010 when I decided to leave consulting. Jonathan and I sold our three-bedroom house and investments in Brisbane, Australia, and rented a one-bedroom flat in London, so we could be debt-free and live on less while I built up a new career. It was a decade before we bought another house. (3) Comparison can be deadly: there will always be people with more money than you Oxford was an education in many ways and relevant to this chapter is how much I didn't know about things people with money took for granted. I learned about formal hall and wine pairings, and how to make a perfect gin and tonic. I ate smoked salmon for the first time. I learned how to fit in with people who had a lot more money than I did, and I definitely wanted to have money of my own to play with. (4) Income is not wealth You can earn lots but have nothing to show for it after years of working. I learned this in my first few years of IT consulting after university. I earned a great salary and then went contracting, earning even more money at a daily rate. I had a wonderful time. I traveled, ate and drank and generally made merry, but I always had to go back to the day job when the money ran out. I couldn't work out how I could ever stop this cycle. Then I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, a book I still recommend, especially if you're from a family that values academic over financial education. I learned how to escape the rat race by building and/or accumulating assets that pay even when you're not working. It was a revelation! The ‘poor dad' in the book is a university professor. He knows so much about so many things, but he ends up poor as he did not educate himself about money. The ‘rich dad' has little formal education, but he knows about money and wealth because he learned about it, as we can do at any stage in our lives. (5) Not all investments suit every person, so find the right one for you Once I discovered the world of investing, I read all the books and did courses and in-person events. I joined communities and I up-skilled big time. Of course, I made mistakes and learned lots along the way. I tried property investing and renovated a couple of houses for rental (with more practical partners and skilled contractors). But while I could see that property investing might work for some people, I did not care enough about the details to make it work for me, and it was certainly not passive income. I tried other things. My first husband was a boat skipper and scuba diving instructor, so we started a charter. With the variable costs of fuel, the vagaries of New Zealand weather — and our divorce — it didn't last long! From all these experiments, I learned I wanted to run a business, but it needed to be online and not based on a physical location, physical premises, or other people. That was 2006, around the time that blogging started taking off and it became possible to make a living online. I could see the potential and a year later, the iPhone and the Amazon Kindle launched, which became the basis of my business as an author. (6) Boring, automatic saving and investing works best Between 2007 and 2011, I contracted in Australia, where they have compulsory superannuation contributions, meaning you have to save and invest a percentage of your salary or self-employed income. I'd never done that before, because I didn't understand it. I'd ploughed all my excess income into property or the business instead. But in Australia I didn't notice the money going out because it was automatic. I chose a particular fund and it auto-invested every month. The pot grew pretty fast since I didn't touch it, and years later, it's still growing. I discovered the power of compound interest and time in the market, both of which are super boring. This type of investing is not a get rich quick scheme. It's a slow process of automatically putting money into boring investments and doing that month in, month out, year in, year out, automatically for decades while you get on with your life. I still do this. I earn money as an author entrepreneur and I put a percentage of that into boring investments automatically every month. I also have a small amount which is for fun and higher risk investments, but mostly I'm a conservative, risk-averse investor planning ahead for the future. This is not financial advice, so I'm not giving any specifics. I have a list of recommended money books at www.TheCreativePenn.com/moneybooks if you want to learn more. Learning from the Shadow When I look back, my Shadow side around money eventually drove me to learn more and resulted in a better outcome (so far!). I was ashamed of being poor when I had to wear hand-me-down clothes at school. That drove a fear of not having any money, which partially explains my workaholism. I was embarrassed at Oxford because I didn't know how to behave in certain settings, and I wanted to be like the rich people I saw there. I spent too much money in my early years as a consultant because I wanted to experience a “rich” life and didn't understand saving and investing would lead to better things in the future. I invested too much in the wrong things because I didn't know myself well enough and I was trying to get rich quick so I could leave my job and ‘be happy.' But eventually, I discovered that I could grow my net worth with boring, long-term investments while doing a job I loved as an author entrepreneur. My only regret is that I didn't discover this earlier and put a percentage of my income into investments as soon as I started work. It took several decades to get started, but at least I did (eventually) start. My money story isn't over yet, and I keep learning new things, but hopefully my experience will help you reflect on your own and avoid the issue if it's still in Shadow. These chapters are excerpted from Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words by Joanna Penn  The post Writing The Shadow: The Creative Wound, Publishing, And Money, With Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Several weeks ago, Paul dissected the good and the bad of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from the tech side on Spirit Gym with tech consultant/UX researcher Rachel Miles.A huge question remained unanswered after that conversation: How do we retain our humanity amid the avalanche of AI tech?Venture capitalist, entrepreneur and first-time author Jeff Burninhgam embraces the answer to that very question in his book, The Last Book Written by a Human: Becoming Wise in the Age of AI.Jeff explains why the presence of AI is an important reminder to embrace our humanity and how the beauty in life is not trying to achieve perfection but to relish in its messiness and imperfection this week on Spirit Gym.Read the first chapter of Jeff's book on his website. Learn more about Jeff on social media via Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, TikTok and Substack.Timestamps8:01 From traveling the Ganges River to running for governor in Utah.19:07 One blessing in disguise with AI: Reminding us of our humanity.23:04 Disruption, reflection, transformation and evolution.29:46 AI as a human crucible.36:12 “No amount of education saves anyone from the Hero's Journey.”45:00 In the presence of AI, we will need to learn how to fight to stay in human relationships.51:51 “As our machines become more intelligent, our work as humans is to become wiser.”1:04:52 The beauty of life is in the mess, the work and the process.1:12:45 “We are human beings, not human doings.”1:27:15 The origin of most existential pain in our lives.1:35:48 Emptiness.1:43:39 Social media: The baby AI.ResourcesThe Silicon SlopesPaul's Living 4D podcast on Lucifer-Christ-AhrimanFind more resources for this episode on our website.Music Credit: Meet Your Heroes (444Hz), Composed, mixed, mastered and produced by Michael RB Schwartz of Brave Bear MusicThanks to our awesome sponsors:PaleovalleyBIOptimizers US and BIOptimizers UK PAUL15Organifi CHEK20Wild PasturesKorrect SPIRITGYMPique LifeCHEK InstituteCHEK Academy We may earn commissions from qualifying purchases using affiliate links.

When it comes to grand gestures, painting your entire city in the one colour is quite something. So much for painting the town red. How about pink? Jaipur beckons as one of India's most enchanting destinations, where the Old City is harmoniously bathed in the same pink hue. The elegant capital of Rajasthan was painted in pink stucco in 1876 to welcome Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, who was the son of Queen Victoria and later became King Edward VII. Jaipur's Maharaja chose the colour because pink symbolises hospitality in Rajput culture, and the gesture impressed the Prince so much that he nicknamed the city the "Pink City." The name – and the stucco - has stuck ever since. A year later, a law mandated that all future buildings in the Old City must be painted pink. As I swept into Jaipur on a private holiday Wendy Wu Tours, there's no denying how that welcoming palette sweetly seduces even the most jaded of travellers. Jaipur effortlessly casts you under its spell, as you delve into its rich history and treasury of enticements. There is an unmistakeable magic about the place. Nearly 300 years ago, an enlightened maharajah with a penchant for jewels and a keen eye for architecture built this planned city, wedged between the arid hills of northwest India. Built in the form of a rectangle, Jaipur was divided into nine blocks, seven for public use and two reserved for the state's most prestigious palaces and buildings. The entire city was girdled by a formidable protective wall. Called Jaipur after the city's founder, Jai Singh II, the planned city soon gave rise to astonishing royal palaces and vast workshops of artisans recruited to establish a new commercial hub. These days, gem cutters, jewellery designers and garment-makers are still doing a flourishing trade in Jaipur. And the royals still occupy a wing of the majestic City Palace, while gleaming mid-rise towers and a new subway system anchor Jaipur's forward march. But for all the contemporary progress, it's the architectural grandeur, proud sense of place and thriving craftwork traditions that make this destination so infectious. Street markets are splashed in colour and handicrafts, and Hindu temples can be found nearly every 100 metres. Though the streets heave with beeping and belching traffic, aimless tourists and dung-dropping cows, there is a charm and charisma to the carnival of commotion. Close to City Palace, my wonderful Wendy Wu Tours guide Vipin treated us to some sizzling old-school retail therapy. We walked under the peeling pink porticos of the roadside bazaars which were emblazoned with everything from puppets to pyjama pants; passing by carts of fried chickpea cakes, and marble-lined shrines with statues of Hindu gods. Garment-hunting was high on the agenda, for gifts to take home. Vipin led us to his favourite shop, where an explosion of colourful fabrics heaped in piles and stacked to the ceiling soon greeted us, as attentive staff served us Masala chai. Whether you're after local, authentic t-shirts, shirts, trousers, scarfs, saris, rugs, cushion covers, towels or table-cloths…this is textile and garment-shopping heaven. As my sister snapped up some sensational saris, I haggled down the price on a sublime tablecloth with block-printed red elephants. The other boom retail business is jewellery, because Jaipur is a global centre for cutting and polishing precious and semiprecious gems. Head to Jewels Emporium's stately white building and take a tour of the workshops, where cutters shape facets, and men at workbenches adorn gold settings with jewels, and rinse the gold dust from their hands in wash basins. That water is later sold to extraction companies. The quality of the workmanship is second to none, true Rajasthan's abiding legacy. Jaipur's Pink City bragging rights is best epitomised by the Hawa Mahal, or Palace of Winds. We stopped by to pose in front of this five-story palace façade, constructed from pink sandstone. Built in 1799, its iconic facade features 953 small windows which allowed royal women of the court to observe street processions without being seen while also creating a natural cooling effect. The palace's architecture is a blend of Rajput and Mughal styles, ornately designed with protruding bays of lattice stonework and cupolas mimicking Krishna's crown. Could there be a more glorious façade in the world? City Palace is a stirring complex to leisurely explore, peppered with mouth-watering architecture, tranquil courtyards and lush gardens. The prize draw is the Palace of the Breeze, a triumph in building design, whereby the air circulates so efficiently that it keeps the occupants cool even in the extreme summer months, when the mercury can nudge 50 degrees. The on-site museum is studded with royal treasures, costumes and curiosities. Out in the courtyard, I admired some massive silver vessels that carried the Maharaja's drinking water from the Ganges River to London in 1902 for Edward VII's coronation. You can see the royal reception rooms that are still in use, where Jaipur's royal family entertain guests in an ornate dining room and parlour, where chairs have silver lions for armrests. The walls are painted with gold dust and extracts of rubies and emeralds. Yipin pointed out where the royal family reside. There's a lot of tabloid tattle about Jaipur's current Maharaja, Pacho Singh. He's only 27, quite the polo-playing playboy and is currently living in the palace with his French girlfriend. But it's fully expected he cannot marry her, in deference to royal tradition and Rajasthan's adherence to arranged marriages and astrological alignment. Beyond the Old City, no visit to Jaipur is complete without savouring the sky-piercing magnificence of the four-hundred-year-old Amber Fort. (Pronounced Ah-meer.) Sprawling across the upper reaches of a hillside like a scene out Return of the Jedi, this fortress was previously the seat of power for the Rajput kings from 1599, before relocating to Jaipur's Old City just over a century later. En-route to the fort, Vipin led us to the most dreamy viewpoint, on the shores of Lake Maotha, where we gazed up in awe at this hilltop colossus. Brightly dressed elephants lumbered by, readying to carry visitors up the slope to the fortress. I had previously taken an elephant ride up to Amber Fort, but I've put weight on since then and am more mindful of animal welfare. We opted for a jeep ride through the skinny lanes snaking their way up to Sun Gate. From here, we marvelled over the China Wall-esque fortifications, the Amber Wall, riding across the ridgelines as far as the eye can see. ( It's 12km in length.) But this Rajput stronghold hooks in the tourist hordes principally for its gobsmacking array of palatial buildings and extravagant ornamental gardens. In shades of honey and rose stone, white marble and gilt decor, it's a frothy fusion of ornate Hindu and Islamic design. Amber Fort's exquisite craftsmanship is best exemplified by the Mirror Palace, or Sheesh Mahal. Candlelight dinners would have been next-level. A single lit candle spangles the beautifully cut Belgian glass panels and mirror mosaics that festoon the walls of the banquet room, transforming the space into a night-sky kaleidoscope across the walls and ceiling. Apparently, this room was made by the Maharaja so that the Maharani (queen) could see the stars at night, as she was not allowed to sleep in the open. Other highlights include the many-pillared Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of Public Audience; the Jal Mandir, or Hall of Victory, which features carved marble panels, a mirrored ceiling, and expansive views over the ramparts of the fort. The Sukh Niwas, the Hall of Pleasure, is another drop-dead-gorgeous marble room that was cleverly cooled with water. Here, the Maharaja reportedly relaxed with his ladies. Amber Fort is a resplendent blockbuster, reverberating with the glory days of Rajput rule in Rajasthan. Jaipur residents are rightly proud of their architectural showstoppers. One of the signature attributes to the city is the fact that some historic palaces, no longer required for the affairs of state, have been reimagined as beacons of hospitality. But I stayed at a brand-new luxury build that is a grand triumph of contemporary construction, fully inspired by Jaipur's landmarks and Rajasthani finesse. Introducing Anantara Jewel Bagh Jaipur. Whether it's for a big bling-bling Bollywood wedding or for immersive luxury experiences away from the heaving throng of Jaipur's tourist spots, this hotel delivers a tour de force in lavish Rajasthani living, with a contemporary take. It is splendour defined. As our Wendy Wu Tours driver pulled into the entrance, a troupe of Rajasthani dancers and costumed drummers serenaded our arrival in spectacular, effervescent style. Unfurling over 5.5 lush acres, the grand hotel's money shot is its sensational main façade, drawing rich inspiration from Amber Fort and Rajasthan's royal palaces. Features include majestic arches, intricately designed jharokhas (bay windows), and graceful chhajjas (overhanging eaves) and detailed carvings. It was thoughtfully painted in the same colours as Amber Fort's walls during golden hour. Rajputana history and heritage permeates the hotel. You'll notice it in the materials—yellowstone from Jaisalmer, marble from Banswara and Makrana, and locally sourced timbered. There's the treasury of sublime artworks, notably including portraits of Rajput warriors and royalty. Peek inside the Rang Mahal ballroom, where the walls are completely covered with celebratory nods to the state's heritage. It was handpainted over two-and-a-half years by third-generation artists. Delicate thikri glasswork, hand-carved wood accents, and intricate gold leaf detailing abound across the hotel. Amer Bagh garden venue unfurls like a verdant blanket at the base of the hotel – and is a stirring outdoor venue. Jai Bagh (victory garden is the main outdoor space for guest and I was absolutely enthralled delving into the daily bazaar that is staged here in the afternoon, complete with puppeteers, block printers, bangle makers and astrologers. Anantara's core DNA is to create hotels steeped in local elements and the Jaipur addition excels at delivering exactly that. You can even go chowk-hopping, vegetable shopping and cooking with local women. The hotel boasts 150 rooms and suites, layered across five categories, with most overlooking the inner courtyard or Jai Bagh. We stayed in the Anantara One-Bedroom Terrace Suite, which is kitted out with its own outdoor Jacuzzi and expansive terrace. I was transfixed here watching muscular monsoon thunderstorms tear up the sky and soak the land! Guestrooms do not skimp on celebrating the sense of place, with sumptuous comforts and artful design elements, from the zardozi on the pillows, thikri work on the headboards, wooden jharokas by the window nooks, and Mughal miniature art on the walls. If that's not enough to tempt you, Anantara's first outpost in India will enchant you with its gastronomic verve. Led by Executive Chef Sunil Jajoria, Sheesh Mahal is a pinch-yourself jewel box of a venue, to experience the true essence of Rajasthan with exquisitely fitted out with glittering mirror mosaics, dressed in 350,000 pieces of glass, inspired by the legendary Mirror Palace. Coud there be a more wondrous place to savour the true essence of Rajasthan's culinary brilliance? The menu marries traditional Rajasthani delicacies with global influences, paired with signature cocktails like the Jewel of Jaipur. Jajoria, a Rajasthan native, has been researching local cuisine for the last seven years. Perfected over 20 trials, his menu dives deep into how maharajas entertained. His tasting menu kicks off with hummus that tastes like Bikaneri bhujia, moving on to ker sangri kebabs, besan kebabs mimicking paneer (as there was no paneer in the history of Rajasthan, says the chef), and Shekhawati maas tacos. The menu is handwritten by the chef himself, on vintage paper he has been collecting since his he was a boy. Pair this menu with the ‘Echoes of Distillation' spirit tasting of heritage liquor from the royal family of Mahansar. It's mixology at its finest, with no shortage of artful theatre thrown in. Another cracking experience is Amrit Mahal, the vibrant all-day dining venue, which presents a diverse array of international and Indian specialties. There were too many highlights to recount, but the lamb baos, edamame truffle dimsums, lotus root on fire, Cantonese buttermilk prawns, soba noodles, and Japanese caramel cheesecake were all pleasurably devoured. The buffet breakfast here is like a royal banquet! The spa experience is a signature feature pillar of any Anantara property, and resident experts were brought in from Thailand to train the Jaipur team. The treatment repertoire remains consistent with their global spa menus—a mix of Ayurveda, Thai massages, and western therapies. I deployed my sister to the spa for some personal panel-beating and she is still buzzing about the deep tissue massage she savoured. She rates it as the best massage of her life, “life-affirming, age-reducing and liberating.” Another starring attribute of the hotel is its genuine sense of connection with the community. As a part of their grassroots outreach, the hotel works with local women to make the rotis on their menu on a chulha or traditional clay stove. You can take an early morning trip to the flower market or a guided farming experience. Even better, take a private visit to Hathi Gaon, which is a community of rescue elephants residing in their natural habitat. Or partake in a local culinary class. I was particularly impressed that the hotel takes care of their staff's accommodation needs, building nearby apartments to ensure they are well-housed. Hospitality is as sparkling as the palace-like hotel itself - faultless, ultra-attentive, charismatic and truly unforgettable. Treat yourself to a remarkable Jaipur escape at Anantara Jewel Bagh. You'll be royally treated from the moment you arrive. You will not want to leave. www.anantara.com Delve into India and the Golden Triangle with the award-winning tour specialists across Asia and beyond. I chose a tailor-made Classic India private holiday, that enables you optimise your itinerary and accommodation preferences, as much as you wish. The itinerary can be as active or as laid back as you are, with full flexibility over included meals and excursions. You'll be in the best of hands with Wendy Wu Tours. www.wendywutours.co.nz/india From New Zealand, it's just a one-stop connection to a multitude of destinations in India, including New Delhi, with Singapore Airlines, on their various daily services from Auckland and Christchurch to Singapore. Enjoy well-timed connections for an easy transit in Singapore. Across all classes of travel, the award-winning carrier has not only fostered a world-beating reputation for its exceptional customer service and in-flight product, but also its innovation. Become a KrisFlyer member and enjoy complimentary in-flight WiFi. For best fares and seats to suit head to https://www.singaporeair.com Mike Yardley is our resident traveller on Jack Tame Saturday Mornings.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cc Madhya 18.1-66 https://vedabase.io/en/library/cc/madhya/18/ ------------------------------------------------------------ Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura gives the following information about Govinda-kuṇḍa. There is a village named Āniyora on Govardhana Hill, a little distance from the village of Paiṭha. Govinda-kuṇḍa is situated near here, and there are two temples to Govinda and Baladeva there. According to some, Queen Padmāvatī excavated this lake. In the Bhakti-ratnākara (Fifth Wave), the following statement is found: ei śrī-govinda-kuṇḍa-mahimā aneka ethā indra kaila govindera abhiṣeka “Govinda-kuṇḍa is exalted for its many spiritual activities. It was here that Indra, defeated by Lord Govinda, offered prayers to Him and bathed Him.” In the book Stavāvalī (Vraja-vilāsa-stava 74) the following verse is found: nīcaiḥ prauḍha-bhayāt svayaṁ sura-patiḥ pādau vidhṛtyeha yaiḥ  svar-gaṅgā-salilaiś cakāra surabhi-dvārābhiṣekotsavam govindasya navaṁ gavām adhipatā rājye sphuṭaṁ kautukāt  tair yat prādurabhūt sadā sphuratu tad govinda-kuṇḍaṁ dṛśoḥ “With humility caused by great fear, Indra took hold of the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa and, in the company of a surabhi cow, performed His coronation festival by bathing Him with the waters of the heavenly Ganges River. Thus Lord Kṛṣṇa's kingship over the cows became splendidly manifest. I pray that Govinda-kuṇḍa, the lake created by that ceremonial bath, may eternally appear before my eyes.” Also, in the Mathurā-khaṇḍa it is stated: yatrābhiṣikto bhagavān maghonā yadu-vairiṇā govinda-kuṇḍaṁ taj-jātaṁ snāna-mātreṇa mokṣa-dam “Simply by bathing in Govinda-kuṇḍa, one is awarded liberation. This lake was produced when Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa was bathed by Lord Indra.” (Cc Madhya 18.37, purport) To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.com/next-steps/ask-vaisesika-dasa/ ------------------------------------------------------------ Add to your wisdom literature collection: https://iskconsv.com/book-store/ https://www.bbtacademic.com/books/ https://thefourquestionsbook.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------ Join us live on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FanTheSpark/ Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sound-bhakti/id1132423868 For the latest videos, subscribe https://www.youtube.com/@FanTheSpark For the latest in SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/fan-the-spark ------------------------------------------------------------ #spiritualawakening #soul #spiritualexperience #spiritualpurposeoflife #spiritualgrowthlessons #secretsofspirituality #vaisesikaprabhu #vaisesikadasa #vaisesikaprabhulectures #spirituality #bhaktiyoga #krishna #spiritualpurposeoflife #krishnaspirituality #spiritualusachannel #whybhaktiisimportant #whyspiritualityisimportant #vaisesika #spiritualconnection #thepowerofspiritualstudy #selfrealization #spirituallectures #spiritualstudy #spiritualquestions #spiritualquestionsanswered #trendingspiritualtopics #fanthespark #spiritualpowerofmeditation #spiritualteachersonyoutube #spiritualhabits #spiritualclarity #bhagavadgita #srimadbhagavatam #spiritualbeings #kttvg #keepthetranscendentalvibrationgoing #spiritualpurpose

India's revered Ganges River has become increasingly polluted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are playing God | Slavoj Žižek and Yuval Noah Harari on CRISPR, AI, and the future of humanity https://youtu.be/V66hlLruZTU?si=MdlJRiceXyWigZ0R have you ever seen a parasailing spider?  https://youtube.com/shorts/qjUAhaRdVb4?si=YMC2EVKTw2jP3CHU How India's unplanned hydropower dams and tunnels are disrupting Himalayan landscapes https://theconversation.com/how-indias-unplanned-hydropower-dams-and-tunnels-are-disrupting-himalayan-landscapes-261956 The Ganges River is drying faster than ever – here's what it means for the ... Read more The post quando perdemos a curiosidade? aranhas que voam! o risco de brincarmos de Deus appeared first on radinho de pilha.

The Boys sit down with special guests Adeley and Justin. The group discuss the fact that Schmitt became a father, the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk along with some fun facts the Ganges River in India.

On befriending the mind; when negative emotions have positive outcomes, and the practice of coming home to yourself.   (0:00) — Introduction  (1:34) — Discussion on Sadhvi's Book "Come Home to Yourself"  (3:05) — The Importance of Spirituality  (10:58) — Bringing the Mind to Your Side  (24:45) — Using Anger Constructively  (41:07) — Daily Practice and Service  (47:41) — Evening Routine and Community Involvement  (49:57) — Closing Remarks and Future Plans Bestselling author, a world-renowned speaker, serving on the United Nations Advisory Council on religion, Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati is a renunciate monk, living in an ashram on the banks of the Ganges River in Rishikesh, India. Originally from Los Angeles, California, and a graduate of Stanford University, she holds a Ph.D. in psychology and has dedicated her life to sharing the profound wisdom from the ancient Vedic tradition of India, as well as serving local communities. Her new book, Come Home To Yourself, is a journey through the heart of householder practices, befriending the mind, mastering the emotions and living a life of exemplary presence. RESOURCES https://comehometoyourself.org/

Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati discusses her journey from a privileged upbringing in Hollywood to her spiritual awakening in India. She recounts her profound experience at the Ganges River, which led her to abandon her PhD and marry Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Despite initial family resistance, she embraced her new path, focusing on humanitarian and spiritual work. Sadhvi emphasizes the importance of anger as a catalyst for change and the need to let go of past traumas to achieve true freedom. She also highlights the disconnection many feel despite technological advancements and the necessity of spiritual practices to reconnect with oneself and the universe. The conversation between Alex Ferrari and Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati explores the concept of humanity's awakening and the importance of conscious living to preserve the planet. Sadhvi emphasizes the need for a balance of masculine and feminine energies, highlighting the shift towards feminine principles since the 1960s. She defines a fulfilled life as one free from internal blockages, allowing the divine flow to express through us. Sadhvi advises embracing play and self-acceptance. She defines God as the divine energy that connects all things, and love as the expression of this energy. Her ultimate purpose is to help individuals realize their inherent divinity and use it to bring peace to the world.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/next-level-soul-podcast-with-alex-ferrari--4858435/support.

On today's episode, Michael sits with Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati. Sadhviji is a renunciate monk, or sanyasi, living in an ashram on the banks of the sacred Ganges River in Rishikesh, India. Originally from Los Angeles and a graduate of Stanford University, she holds a Ph.D. in psychology and has dedicated her life to sharing the profound wisdom from the ancient Vedic tradition of India. Sadhviji is a bestselling author, a world-renowned speaker, a recipient of President Biden's Award for a Lifetime of Service, and she serves on the United Nations Advisory Council on religion. Her latest book, “Come Home to Yourself: Simple Answers to Life's Essential Questions,” is out now.  Highlights from their conversation include: -How Sadhviji's book, “Come Home to Yourself,” was birthed through satsangs—spiritual Q&A sessions where divine wisdom flows through her to meet people's deepest concerns -The lack of inner joy Sadhviji felt, despite having all the “ingredients” for happiness—education, success, privilege, which led her to reluctantly travel to India -The profound realization that our inner narratives of not being good enough, lovable, or pure are illusions, and that true healing begins when we question those narratives -Thoughts to vehicles—buses that we can choose to ride or not–which allows us to take back control and intentionally choose thoughts that align with peace and love -Sadhviji's childhood trauma and how true forgiveness set her free -Reframing surrender as not giving up, but aligning with the deeper flow of divine wisdom and intelligence, opening to the way to spiritual power -Reflections on the spiritual elegance of simplicity—Truth doesn't need to be complicated to be transformative -Sadhvij's call to action, reminding us that spirituality must lead to service and action, and how, in a chaotic world, our inner practice empowers us to stand up, speak up, and show up for good Next, Michael leads a centering meditation to pause, return to inner stillness, and become a vessel of love for others. Get Sadhviji's book, “Come Home to Yourself: Simple Answers to Life's Essential Questions,” here https://comehometoyourself.org/.  Visit her website, https://sadhviji.org/, follow her on FB, IG, and see her videos at her YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/c/Sadhviji.  Listen to her new podcast, Ask Sadhviji, wherever you enjoy your podcasts.   Remember to Subscribe or Follow and set an alert to receive notifications each Wednesday when new episodes are available! Connect with Michael at his website – https://michaelbeckwith.com/ – and receive his guided meditation, “Raise Your Vibration and Be Untouchable” when you sign up to receive occasional updates from Michael!  You can also connect with him at https://agapelive.com/. Facebook: @Michael.B.Beckwith https://www.facebook.com/Michael.B.Beckwith  IG: @michaelbbeckwith https://www.instagram.com/michaelbbeckwith/  TikTok: @officialmichaelbeckwith   https://www.tiktok.com/@officialmichaelbeckwith  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqMWuqEKXLY4m60gNDsw61w  And as always, deep gratitude to the sponsors of the Take Back Your Mind with Michael B. Beckwith podcast: -Agape International Spiritual Center: https://agapelive.com/ and -NutriRise, the makers of Michael's AdaptoZen product line, a few of which include: -Superfood Greens: https://nutririse.com/products/greens-superfood  -Superfood Reds: https://nutririse.com/products/adaptozen-superfood-reds    -ELEVATE+: Organic Fermented Mushrooms: https://nutririse.com/products/elevate-fermented-mushrooms-powder  

This week Spencer is bringing us another round of TIFU! Next, Madison tells us about the wildly macabre Ganges River. We've got an obituary that is absolutely diabolical, one with some contradictions and so much more!!! INCLUDING some dumb.ass.criminallllllllls! Let's go! Watch us on YouTube: Youtube.com/@obitchuarypodcast Buy our book: prh.com/obitchuaryGet your Merch: wonderyshop.com/obitchuaryCome see us live on tour: obitchuarypodcast.comJoin our Patreon: Patreon.com/cultliterNew episodes come out every Thursday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.Follow along online: @obitchuarypod on Twitter & Instagram @obitchuarypodcast on TikTokCheck out Spencer's other podcast Cult Liter wherever you're listening!Write to us: obitpod@gmail.comSpencer Henry & Madison ReyesPO Box 18149 Long Beach, CA 90807Sources:https://www.newspapers.com/image/1103028703/?article=db2a31e6-e78f-46aa-b4df-35f64e13107a&terms=beauty%20queenhttps://www.seasmartschool.com/blog/2022/2/17/12-most-polluted-rivers-in-the-worldhttps://www.wilton-photography.com/news-stories/life-and-death-along-the-ghats-of-varanasi#:~:text=When%20only%20ashes%20remain%20these,cannot%20be%20cremated%20in%20Varanasi.https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/death-on-the-ganges/https://www.passporthealthusa.com/2023/12/bathing-in-the-ganges-river/https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28112403https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangeshttps://www.hinduamerican.org/blog/ganga-river-goddesshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghats_in_Varanasihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_of_the_Gangeshttps://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-became-of-india-s-corpse-eating-turtleshttps://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/the-pyres-of-varanasi-breaking-the-cycle-of-death-and-rebirthhttps://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/02/0e7f9656dc55-feature-indias-cremation-king-helps-to-bring-salvation-in-modern-times.htmlhttps://www.wired.com/story/india-ganges-river-clean-project/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/indias-government-once-released-25000-flesh-eating-turtles-ganges-river-180953384/https://www.wect.com/2022/05/12/woman-exits-vehicle-drive-thru-car-crashes-over-chick-fil-a-retaining-wall/https://www.newspapers.com/image/828291399/?article=9dd4051c-67a1-41f2-a7e1-320e6cc1286f&terms=monster%20https://people.com/onlyfans-model-allegedly-poops-car-road-rage-incident-11728123See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ten Thousand Things is back for another season, now with Wonder Media Network. This season is about the objects that help us move forward — like a traditional Vietnamese dress, a jar of water from the Ganges River, and a gold trophy. New episodes start May 20th. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 How do we break out of self-sabotage? The mind is biologically programmed to be negative. Lisa continues the conversation today with renunciate monk and author Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati. Sadhvi has lived on the banks of the sacred Ganges River in Rishikesh, India, for the past 30 years. Originally from Los Angeles, and a graduate of Stanford University, she holds a Ph.D. in psychology. Sadhvi explains how we are the offspring of people who know they need to survive. Our ancestors needed to assume the worst, in order to survive. We have evolved this way. And, we know that we can now change. We can reprogram our minds. Sadhvi suggests using a mantra. It doesn't have to be in Sanskrit. It's anything that can bring you into the present moment and out of negativity. We can reason with our minds, and sometimes we need to face the negativity, but more often we can delete and end the cycle of negativity. “OM” is a very common mantra. It's very powerful. Chanting also helps. This stops the mind. She gives examples of many different mantras and prayers. The sounds help the brain go into a state of coherence. She also talks about attending the Maha Kumbh Mela where more than 670 million people came to the Ganges river recently to attend the largest gathering in the history of the world. The Maha Kumbh Mela means the great festival of the nectar of immortality. It took place on the confluence of the banks of 3 great rivers in India.  There was no conflict, no violence; it was just people coming together in love and peace. She further discusses the astrology of the moment, especially the full moons. Vedic astrology predicts that this particular planetary alignment happens only once every 144 years. With hundreds of millions of people attending the gathering, this shows that people are suffering and looking for answers. People are angry. People are frustrated. People are searching for answers. This was a way to break out of constraints and experience freedom. When asked about anger, she expressed that there are some reasons to be angry including poverty, hunger, loss of human rights, and so much more. Yet, when we are angry, we are called to be agents of change, but first we must find peace within ourselves so we can then help others. She offers breathing exercises with specific energy centers and anchoring. Whether it's other people's actions, or even the weather, we shouldn't have expectations that things will be different. We cannot control others. We must bring light to the darkness, but not from a place of anger. She notes Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Gandhi and how they were angry but came from a place of peace to make change.   Sadhvi is a bestselling author, a world-renowned speaker, a recipient of President Biden's Award for a Lifetime of Service, and she serves on the United Nations Advisory Council on religion. She talks further about her new book “Come Home to Yourself” and discusses how forgiveness is the key to help us reach deeper spiritual truths. It's an invitation to come home to freedom. This is Part 2 of the interview. Info: www.sadhviji.org  

An old faded rice cooker. A blue two piece suit. A vial of water from the Ganges River. For the past four years, Poet Shin Yu Pai’s podcast, Ten Thousand Things, has explored how objects – from the extraordinary to the mundane, the literal to the figurative – communicate stories of Asian American meaning, identity, and culture. As of last month, the stories in the series have broken out of podcast players and become a new exhibit in Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum. The exhibit includes objects that will be familiar to listeners of the series – as well as some new items that will be featured in upcoming episodes. Soundside’s Alec Cowan joined Shin Yu Pai at the Wing Luke Museum to talk about the exhibit. Guests: Shin Yu Pai, writer, curator, and host of Ten Thousand Things. Related Links: EXHIBIT: Ten Thousand Things — Wing Luke Museum KUOW - Ten Thousand Things with Shin Yu Pai Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you live in anger and fear? Would you like to hear a story of healing? Today Lisa talks with renunciate monk and author Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati. Sadhvi has lived on the banks sacred Ganges River in Rishikesh, India, for the past 30 years. Originally from Los Angeles, and a graduate of Stanford University, she holds a Ph.D. in psychology. Seemingly having it all, she realized at the young age of 25, that she was not happy. Although she was married and excelled academically, she felt restless and was always wanting more. She had overcome childhood traumas, abuse, a severe eating disorder, and depression. She knew there must be another way. Upon arriving in India, she had an unexpected and profound spiritual experience. She only went to India because her husband wanted to go. She left with only a backpack, thinking this would be a semester break. Suddenly, while standing on the banks of the Ganges River, she was overwhelmed with ecstasy. Several days later she randomly walked past a beautiful, clean ashram. It felt like an oasis to her. She was walking through it and heard a voice say, “You must stay here.” She didn't see anyone, and she was a scientist, so of course she ignored it. One minute later, she heard the voice again, and still didn't see anyone. She was just about to ignore it again, when she remembered she made a promise to herself while on the flight to India. She asked herself to “keep her heart open.” The fact she was in India made no sense to her. She was not religious, and she was not spiritual, yet she always believed there would be a plan. This felt perfect and she knew this must somehow be aligned. Sadvhi further shares her story about realizing that things were planned. Being a scientist, she does not believe in random events. Although she still believes in science, she was open to possibilities. She knew that if she didn't want to stay in India, it would be very easy for her to return to the US. She ended up staying at the ashram and working with the spiritual teacher there. The ashram is dedicated to self-realization and awakening for all. The devotees there believe in the betterment of all and help to provide food for the hungry, empower women, and offer free medical care, as well as a spiritual path for anyone who is interested. They have yoga programs, philosophy programs, sacred ceremonies, all taught by example from the guru there. They focus on love and compassion for all. Sadhvi is a bestselling author, a world-renowned speaker, a recipient of President Biden's Award for a Lifetime of Service, and she serves on the United Nations Advisory Council on religion. Sadhvi's latest book is “Come Home to Yourself.” This book is the edited version of the Q&A sessions that she teaches each night in the ashram. She is a vessel for wisdom to pour through her. She feels that the gift she was given was to come home to the truth. She wants to offer these powerful teachings as a way for each person to find the truth within themselves. We all have the answers within. We may just need to be reminded that we can end our suffering by coming home to ourselves. We don't need to constantly be taught; we just need to be guided back into ourselves to find the truth.  Info: www.sadhviji.org

More than sacred—this is about cosmic justice, karmic cleansing, and the mysterious flow of divine grace. In this provocative conclusion to our two-part deep dive, Raghunath and Kaustubha unpack why the Ganges is revered as the purifier of sins and how its sanctity is upheld—not just by myth or ritual, but through the living presence of Krishna and His devotees. What makes a river more than water? How does mercy override karma? And how can we become a river of grace ourselves? Key Highlights: •⁠  ⁠The Ganges as a portal of divine compassion—from Vaikuntha to Earth. •⁠  ⁠How saintly souls become walking places of pilgrimage. •⁠  ⁠Grace vs. karma: why fairness isn't the highest principle in the universe. •⁠  ⁠The mystical relationship between Krishna's feet, the holy river, and the pure-hearted. •⁠  ⁠Why Bhagiratha's mission wasn't just personal—it was a multi-generational act of love. Whether you've dipped in her waters or just dreamed of the Himalayas, this episode will change the way you see rivers, saints, and the subtle forces that shape our destiny.

More than sacred—this is about cosmic justice, karmic cleansing, and the mysterious flow of divine grace. In this provocative conclusion to our two-part deep dive, Raghunath and Kaustubha unpack why the Ganges is revered as the purifier of sins and how its sanctity is upheld—not just by myth or ritual, but through the living presence of Krishna and His devotees. What makes a river more than water? How does mercy override karma? And how can we become a river of grace ourselves? Key Highlights: •⁠  ⁠The Ganges as a portal of divine compassion—from Vaikuntha to Earth. •⁠  ⁠How saintly souls become walking places of pilgrimage. •⁠  ⁠Grace vs. karma: why fairness isn't the highest principle in the universe. •⁠  ⁠The mystical relationship between Krishna's feet, the holy river, and the pure-hearted. •⁠  ⁠Why Bhagiratha's mission wasn't just personal—it was a multi-generational act of love. Whether you've dipped in her waters or just dreamed of the Himalayas, this episode will change the way you see rivers, saints, and the subtle forces that shape our destiny.

Can water actually wash away your karma? For thousands of years, pilgrims have journeyed to the Ganges River with unwavering faith that her sacred waters can liberate the soul. But where does that power come from? And why is it believed that even the most sinful acts can be purified through a simple bath in her current? In this episode, Raghunath and Kaustubha explore the profound story of King Bhagirath and the descent of the Ganga, as told in the pages of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. Together, they unpack ancient insights into how grace flows through sacred elements, and how divine consciousness transforms even the physical elements of this world. Key Highlights: • Why Bhagirath's mission to bring down the Ganges spanned generations • The deep Vedic symbolism of “lotus feet” and approaching the divine from the ground up • Ganga's own doubts—can she handle the sins of the world? • What makes something sacred in bhakti: form, faith, or transcendental connection? Get ready to rethink what it means to be purified, and how spiritual energy can travel through water, sound, and intention to change the destiny of a soul.

Can water actually wash away your karma? For thousands of years, pilgrims have journeyed to the Ganges River with unwavering faith that her sacred waters can liberate the soul. But where does that power come from? And why is it believed that even the most sinful acts can be purified through a simple bath in her current? In this episode, Raghunath and Kaustubha explore the profound story of King Bhagirath and the descent of the Ganga, as told in the pages of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. Together, they unpack ancient insights into how grace flows through sacred elements, and how divine consciousness transforms even the physical elements of this world. Key Highlights: • Why Bhagirath's mission to bring down the Ganges spanned generations • The deep Vedic symbolism of “lotus feet” and approaching the divine from the ground up • Ganga's own doubts—can she handle the sins of the world? • What makes something sacred in bhakti: form, faith, or transcendental connection? Get ready to rethink what it means to be purified, and how spiritual energy can travel through water, sound, and intention to change the destiny of a soul.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit akiyaproject.substack.comIf you believe that America's national park system is one of the greatest achievements in the country‘s history — and is for the betterment of mankind — you'd find yourself in the company of the majority, including me. However, Cronon articulates a fascinating history of post-Civil War America and the winding down of the Indian wars. At this time, many native Indians were forced off their land to establish the national parks across the country in the name of keeping the land “pristine” and “sublime”. Naturally, we think of this as an absurd tragedy. We often think of the native people as having a deep connection with the land and a deep connection to their human nature. Why, then, would we divorce them from their natural place and way of life in order to respect an arbitrary line on the map? In his essay, Cronon argues that we all possess the same human nature, whether we are native Indian, American settlers moving out West, Swiss mountaineers, or Japanese farmers. However, in our modern world, we Americans seem to have forgotten that truth that we are embued with human nature. Modernity and industrialization have done a good job of detaching us from the land, the fruits of our labor, and the wrath of natural disaster. Cronon says that we have fetishized the wilderness out there and have failed to recognize the wilderness in here. From a practical matter of public policy, it makes no sense to dismantle the national parks nor would I ever advocate for such action. However, my experiences in Japan, in Switzerland, and the reflections I've gained from reading this essay have taught me that it does little good to treat far-flung places as separate from civilization. If we do so, it becomes easy to slip into the mindset that we humans are devoid of nature, or worse, are contaminants to it. Instead, Cronon argues that we should tend to our gardens, care for the trees along our sidewalks, and clean the streams in our neighborhoods just as if they are Yosemite Valley, the Amazon Rainforest, or the Ganges River. There is a beautiful Buddhist belief that says that as you walk along the street and look upon the faces of the strangers going past you, you may just be looking at the face of the Buddha. In the same way, the nature in your backyard exemplifies the sublime if you only look close enough.Local Japan Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Books Mentioned In This Episode:When you purchase a book (or anything on Amazon) with the links below, you support me and the podcast at no extra cost to you:* Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature by William Cronon* The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan* Walking by Henry David Thoreau* My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir* Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail by Theodore Roosevelt* The End of Nature by Bill McKibben* This Is Dinosaur: Echo Park Country and Its Magic River by Wallace Stegner* Home Economics by Wendell BerryLinks to More Resources:* Profesor William Cronon* President Theodore Roosevelt* John Muir* William Woodsworth* Hayao Miyazaki* Princess Mononoke* Wendell Berry* Learn Ikebana in Kobe (with me and a local expert!) on TripAdvisor* The Akiya Project on YouTubeProducts Used For the Build* Rockwool Insulation* Wood PuttyIf you'd like to see the visual media and photos behind this paywall, please subscribe for $5 a month or just $40 a year!

Ch. 4 - Noble Silence from Journey of Insight Meditation by Eric Lerner BENARES, THE SPIRITUAL CAPITAL of Hinduism, and the site of our next retreat, had been one of the most exciting places I'd visited in India or anywhere else in my travels around the world four years earlier. It's a city of death and rebirth. Pilgrims gather there to bathe away their sins in the holy Ganges River waters and then patiently await the end of this life in order to be cremated beside the Mother of Waters. Saddhus and holy men mingle freely with the poor and the well-to-do. Everyone is a beggar at the end. The fires of cremation along the river banks produce eerie, smoky sunsets while the holy chanting of “Hare Krishna,” “Hare Krishna” goes on night and day. by Eric Lerner 2025 30 minutes 25 seconds Listen to Streaming Audio Your browser does not support the audio element. Download Audio (14MB) Audio copyright, 2025 Pariyatti View the book, eBook and free PDF download. You can also find it at Amazon worldwide using this link: http://a-fwd.com/com=pariyatti-20&asin=B0CJL9SG5D. About Eric Lerner. View more books and audio resources available in the Pariyatti bookstore.

Sadhviji Bhagawati Saraswati is a renunciate nun, or sanyasi, living in an ashram on the banks of the sacred Ganges River in Rishikesh, India, nestled amidst the majestic Himalayan Mountains. Originally from Los Angeles, California, and a graduate of Stanford University, she holds a Ph.D. in psychology and has devoted her life to sharing the profound wisdom of the ancient Vedic tradition from India. Sadhviji is a bestselling author, a world-renowned speaker, and a recipient of President Biden's Award for a Lifetime of Service. She also serves on the United Nations Advisory Council on Religion. Connect with Sadhviji: WEBSITE: www.sadhviji.org INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/sadhviji YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/@Sadhviji This event is hosted by ✨ Happy Jack Yoga University ✨ www.happyjackyoga.com ➡️ Facebook: /happyjackyoga ➡️ Instagram: @happyjackyoga Bhakti Yoga Conference at Harvard Divinity School Experience a one-of-a-kind online opportunity with 40+ renowned scholars, monks, yogis, and thought leaders! REGISTER FOR FREE: www.happyjackyoga.com/bhakti-... This conference is your opportunity to immerse yourself in the wisdom of sincere practitioners as they address the questions and challenges faced by us all. Expect thought-provoking discussions, actionable insights, and a deeper understanding of cultivating Grace in an Age of Distraction and incorporating Bhakti Yoga into your daily life.

It remains one of the most powerful and personal callings for someone on a quest for transformation and inspiration: the pilgrimage — a journey to what are believed to be sources of connection to the sacred or divine, the holy places.Many of the best-known religious pilgrimages involve a million or more believers or devotees, such as the Hajj, or sacred Hindu celebrations in India. A pilgrimage can be required by religious law, or begin with a singular calling, an inner urge, felt by the pilgrim for closer communion with the divine, however the spiritual or universal source is named or described.Why do people all over the planet from nearly every tradition take up these sometimes arduous adventures of spiritual devotion? What do they hope for?In this conversation we hear from two longtime Portals friends who recently completed what some people might call the pilgrimage of a lifetime, to the source high in the Himalayas of the sacred Ganges River, in Hindu belief the home of the Goddess Ganga. Jeff Vander Clute, consultant and author, and Grace Boda, teacher, consultant and executive coach, share with Aviv Shahar the feelings and power of their pilgrimage to this divine source.Among their insights:Pilgrimage is an opportunity to be individually transformed, and to plug into a universal power and give back into the collective — a seemingly nonlinear impact on the field, this planet and the people who inhabit her.It was a total life reboot; a reorientation from rigorously mining truth in every circumstance, to expressing love grounded in truth.It's reaching an edge physically, out of one's comfort zone, and needing to access other energy, other capacity, with the mental experience of dropping the structures and formations that block higher communion.When we Source, we open to the inspiration, and it brings a kind of knowing of right action — what the moment calls for. We can respond accordingly, and roles emerge; if a Sherpa is needed, we're suddenly a Sherpa.If there is shadow anywhere, there is shadow in me; if there is woundedness, there's woundedness in me. We co-participate in the field of healing. None of us is above the work required.If there is a Second Coming, it is all of us. This time, the upwelling impulse of enlightenment is collective — a collective presence and awakeness — which fills us from a source beyond any personal identity.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “And I realized that I was having a total life reboot. And, with the benefit of a little bit of hindsight, I can say that the nature of the reboot was a reorientation from mining truth, like rigorously mining truth, in every circumstance: what is true, what is true, what is true, what is true? What is real, and what is not? That had been my inquiry for many years. Subsequent to going all the way to the source, and having this embodied experience, the inquiry changed to expressing love.” (Jeff) “Perhaps because this group was ultra coherent, we were somehow able to become a conscious microcosm of the whole, of let's say the species, and even the whole Gaian system, and offer ourselves in service to the transformation of the entirety and the healing of the human family. So we're going to the source, and we're going to the roots, and we're able to be correspondingly empowered in our service and devotion to the transformation of humanity at this time.” (Jeff) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteJourneying to Source

The Ganges River, a lifeline for millions and one of the most significant and sacred rivers in the world, faces a multitude of seemingly intractable environmental challenges. One of the most innovative ways of both researching and shifting attitudes on the Ganges is through Citizen Science, bringing scientists and communities together to learn more about the world around them. Guests: Dr Prem Kurup (Science Education, La Trobe University) Anjali Yadav (PhD Candidate, La Trobe University and IIT Kanpur) Host: Assoc. Professor Ruth Gamble (Deputy Director, La Trobe Asia) Recorded on 17th October, 2024.

In this episode of Unknown Nations Podcast, Greg Kelley shares the remarkable story of Maya, whose encounter along the Ganges River ignited a gospel movement among the world's largest population of unreached people. Learn how her faith is now transforming lives and discover how you can join the mission and bring hope to the nations where Jesus is unknown.

 Learn more about Unknown Nations by visiting www.UnknownNations.com.

Fluent Fiction - Hindi: Tea, Travel & New Beginnings: A Love Story at Rishikesh Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.org/tea-travel-new-beginnings-a-love-story-at-rishikesh Story Transcript:Hi: गंगा नदी के किनारे, ऋषिकेश के हरे-भरे वातावरण में एक चाय की दुकान थी।En: On the banks of the Ganges River, nestled in the lush environment of Rishikesh, there was a tea shop.Hi: हवा में शरद ऋतु की ठंडक थी, और दुकान पर लोग गणेश चतुर्थी की रंगीन तैयारियों में व्यस्त दिखाई दे रहे थे।En: The chill of autumn was in the air, and people at the shop appeared to be engrossed in the colorful preparations for Ganesh Chaturthi.Hi: चाय की भाप आस-पास फैल रही थी और लोग चाय के साथ अपनी यात्रा की कहानियाँ साझा कर रहे थे।En: The steam from the tea wafted around, and people were sharing stories of their journeys over cups of tea.Hi: रोहन चुपचाप एक नुक्कड़ पर बैठा चाय की चुस्की ले रहा था।En: Rohan sat quietly in a corner, sipping his tea.Hi: वह खुश दिखने की कोशिश कर रहा था, लेकिन उसका दिल अभी भी पिछली प्रेम कहानी के घाव को सहला रहा था।En: He tried to appear happy, but his heart was still nursing the wounds of a past love story.Hi: तभी, उसके बगल की कुर्सी पर एक युवती आकर बैठ गई।En: Just then, a young woman sat down on the chair next to him.Hi: यह आयशा थी, उसकी आँखों में साहसिकता की चमक थी, लेकिन भीतर गहरे वह जीवन के अगले कदम के बारे में उलझन में थी।En: It was Ayesha, whose eyes sparkled with a sense of adventure, yet deep inside she was tangled with uncertainties about her next steps in life.Hi: दोनों ने एक-दूसरे की ओर देखा और मुस्कुरा दिए।En: They looked at each other and smiled.Hi: रोहन ने आयशा से हल्की बातचीत शुरू की।En: Rohan initiated a light conversation with Ayesha.Hi: "क्या तुम भी यहाँ घूमने आई हो?En: "Are you here on a trip too?"Hi: " उसने पूछा।En: he asked.Hi: आयशा ने उत्तर दिया, "हाँ, और खुद को खोजने के लिए।En: Ayesha replied, "Yes, and to find myself."Hi: " उनकी बातें धीरे-धीरे यात्रा और आध्यात्मिकता की ओर मुड़ गईं।En: Their conversation gradually turned towards travel and spirituality.Hi: दोनों को लगा जैसे वे अपनी परेशानियों को एक-दूसरे के साथ साझा कर सकते हैं।En: Both felt as though they could share their troubles with one another.Hi: गणेश चतुर्थी के उत्सव के दौरान, गंगा के किनारे आवाज़ें और रंग बिखरे हुए थे।En: During the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, the sounds and colors scattered along the banks of the Ganges.Hi: रोहन ने अपनी यात्रा योजनाओं के बारे में आयशा को बताया और कहा, "क्या हमें और समय साथ बिताना चाहिए?En: Rohan shared his travel plans with Ayesha and said, "Should we spend more time together?"Hi: " आयशा ने सहमति में सिर हिला दिया।En: Ayesha nodded in agreement.Hi: मेला और त्योहार उनके भीतर एक विशेष संबंध जगा रहे थे, और उन्हें महसूस हुआ उन्होंने एक-दूसरे में कुछ अनमोल पाया है।En: The fair and festival sparked a special bond between them, and they realized they had found something precious in each other.Hi: जैसे ही वह दिन समाप्त हुआ, उन्होंने एक निर्णय लिया।En: As the day came to an end, they made a decision.Hi: वे ऋषिकेश में घूमने और एक साथ नई यात्रा शुरू करने का फैसला किया।En: They decided to explore Rishikesh together and embark on a new journey.Hi: रोहन ने धीरे-धीरे दिल खोलना शुरू किया और पाया कि वह फिर से प्यार और खुशी के प्रति आशावान हो सकता था।En: Rohan slowly began to open his heart and found that he could be hopeful about love and happiness once again.Hi: आशी ने महसूस किया कि वह नई चीज़ों को गले लगाने और संबंध बनाने में सक्षम है।En: Ayesha realized that she was capable of embracing new things and forming connections.Hi: इस तरह, गंगा के किनारे बैठकर, गणेश चतुर्थी की रोशनी में, दो यात्रियों ने एक नई यात्रा की शुरुआत की, जिसमें अनिश्चितता थी लेकिन साथीपन और रोमांच भी था।En: Thus, sitting on the banks of the Ganges, under the lights of Ganesh Chaturthi, the two travelers began a new journey, one filled with uncertainty but also companionship and adventure. Vocabulary Words:banks: किनारेnestled: स्थितlush: हरे-भरेengrossed: व्यस्तpreparations: तैयारियोंwafted: फैल रही थीnursing: सहलानाwounds: घावsparkled: चमकtangled: उलझनinitiated: शुरू कियाspirituality: आध्यात्मिकताscattered: बिखरे हुएbond: संबंधprecious: अनमोलcompanionship: साथीपनadventure: रोमांचenvironment: वातावरणchill: ठंडकautumn: शरद ऋतुsharing: साझा करनाsipping: चुस्की लेनाuncertainties: अनिश्चितताconversation: बातचीतgradually: धीरे-धीरेtogether: साथ-साथembracing: गले लगानाexplore: घूमनाhopeful: आशावानconnections: संबंध

In this episode, recorded Thursday August 1st 2024, I spoke with Amrutham Babu, where we discussed the "Journey to India" from SDI, a 14-day and 15-night experience taking place from January 10 to 24, 2025. This trip is specifically designed for spiritual directors and companions, offering an in-depth look at India's spiritual heritage. The journey includes: - **Internal Airfare:** Travel between locations within India. - **Airport Shuttle:** Pick-up and drop-off from the airport. - **Accommodation:** Single and twin/double rooms available. - **Meals:** Daily breakfast at the hotel. - **Arrival/Departure Assistance:** Transportation in an air-conditioned vehicle. - **Sightseeing Transportation:** Private, air-conditioned coach. - **Guides:** A local English-speaking guide, an experienced spiritual companion, and an SDI staff member. - **Entrance Fees:** Access to all monuments. - **Toll Taxes and 5% GST.** - **Activities:** Rickshaw ride in Delhi, village tour in Amritsar, battery van ride in Agra, daily yoga sessions in Rishikesh, and a boat ride on the Ganges River in Varanasi. This journey is an opportunity for spiritual growth and connection through experiencing India's spiritual heritage. Amrutham and I explore the details of this transformative trip and how you can be part of it. Come join us. Learn more and register here: https://www.sdicompanions.org/product/india-journey-january-2025/

Gugan, also known as Guha, is a character from the Indian epic, the Ramayana. He is the chief of the Nishada tribe and is known for his unwavering loyalty and friendship with Lord Rama. When Rama, along with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana, was exiled to the forest, Gugan offered them his hospitality and assistance. Gugan's friendship with Rama is significant because it transcends social and caste boundaries, reflecting the values of loyalty, humility, and respect. He helps Rama and his family cross the Ganges River, providing them with a boat and offering them food and shelter. This gesture exemplifies Gugan's devotion and the deep bond of friendship that exists between them. Their relationship is a celebrated example of true friendship and devotion in Indian mythology.

All my links: https://linktr.ee/fairlylame This Week's Stories! (0:00) Cleaning Up The Ganges River! (0:56) Floating Solar Farms! (2:14) Using Tyres To Re-Surface Roads! (3:41) Saving Hawai'i's Birds From Malaria! (4:58) Sources: Cleaning Up The Ganges River! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0BKaVbcC8I Floating Solar Farms! https://grist.org/energy/climate-lake-floating-solar-panels-floatovoltaics/ Using Tyres To Re-Surface Roads! https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2020/jul/sustainable-roads  Saving Hawai'i's Birds From Malaria! https://www.npr.org/2024/06/12/nx-s1-4906582/mosquito-hawaii-birds-endangered-species-extinct

Today we have on my business coach and digital nomad coach, Christa Romano from the Digital Nomad Life Academy and The Digital Nomad Life Podcast. She is here to tell us how she landed on Buzzfeed's Top Most Embarrassing Moments list and went viral. We also talk about what it means to become a digital nomad and how Christa and her program have truly changed my life. I am now able to work anywhere, travel the world and have ultimate freedom because of today's guest. I am so glad she is here on the show for y'all!  How to Become a Digital Nomad:FREE Masterclass from My CoachConnect with Christa:Digital Nomad Life Podcast@christabellatravels Support the Show.Want your episodes early? Sign up HERE to the newsletter. You will get episodes a week early!Connect:Instagram: @culturecultshowEmail: culturecultshow@gmail.comSend in your best travel story to share on the podcast via voice message or email:culturecultshow@gmail.com

Why are there no bear ghosts? Nearly all the ghosts in the world seem to come from a specific period of time, long before any of us were born. There is a universal obsession with death, so we're going to explore death from the perspective of those left behind. (Traditions about what lays beyond will be the subject of another episode.)We talk about the Shiva tradition in Judaism, and the ghastly tradition of shades that dates back to at least as far as the monarch's encounter with the witch of Endor.We explore some traditions common among Christian denominations, and also WAKES! Another strong ghostly tradition exists among Christians, but not universally shared.We look at funerary and ghostly traditions among Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, and Zoroastrians; and we take some time to ponder the Ghanaian Fantasy Coffins, and the New Orleans Jazz Funeral. What really deserves attention is the phenomenon of near-death experiences, not that they teach us about the world beyond, but they teach us an awful lot about ourselves. Raymond Moody put a lot of work into that field of NDEs, too bad it's all completely subjective neural chaos. DMT has been reported to offer a similar experience.All this and more....   Support us on Patreon or you can get our merch at Spreadshop.Join the Community on Discord.Learn more great religion factoids on Facebook and Instagram. [00:00:11] Katie Dooley: Hello, Preston.[00:00:12] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie.[00:00:14] Katie Dooley: Get off your phone.[00:00:15] Preston Meyer: Okay.[00:00:18] Katie Dooley: It'll rot your brain on today's episode of--[00:00:21] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast![00:00:24] Katie Dooley: I don't know how to make a segue into this one.[00:00:27] Preston Meyer: This is a bit of a bummer.[00:00:28] Katie Dooley: It's... I feel like it's a more awkward conversation than even our sex talk.[00:00:33] Preston Meyer: I don't feel like it's more awkward.[00:00:34] Katie Dooley: People don't like talking about death. We're going to talk about some gross things today. [00:00:38] Preston Meyer: A little bit. But yeah, death is around us all the time. Can't really avoid it. That's the deal.[00:00:44] Katie Dooley: No, it's, uh, inevitable. Like Thanos.[00:00:48] Preston Meyer: That's what they say. Yeah, so I was talking to. A person that I work with the other day about his concern with ghosts. He was actually really worried about, um, the Titanic 2 expedition and all that nonsense, but the conversation led very quickly to ghosts, and it boggles my mind that we haven't just agreed that everywhere on the planet is super haunted or nowhere is.[00:01:21] Katie Dooley: I have had that thought as well. Um, I don't disagree with him because. My house alone has been around since the 50s. You can't tell me something hasn't died nearby,[00:01:33] Preston Meyer: Right?[00:01:34] Katie Dooley: Actually, I have heard that there is an unfortunate story with the next-door house, so, um,[00:01:40] Preston Meyer: Tell me more.[00:01:41] Katie Dooley: Uh, apparently someone killed themselves next door before the current people...[00:01:44] Preston Meyer: Bummer. Lived there. Are there haunting stories?[00:01:46] Katie Dooley: Not that I've heard of.[00:01:48] Preston Meyer: Okay. Just the unfortunate circumstances of death.[00:01:51] Katie Dooley: Yes, but that's typically.[00:01:54] Preston Meyer: What leads to a...[00:01:55] Katie Dooley: Haunting story. And I always think about how I'm like, you know, get haunted by your cat or your dog. How come ghosts are only humans? There's no bear ghosts.[00:02:03] Preston Meyer: It's a great question. Cocaine bear has unfinished business.[00:02:09] Katie Dooley: We should name this episode, "How come there are no ghosts?" Though I do really like your title, which we will probably stay with. Um. But I have often thought.[00:02:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah, for sure.[00:02:23] Katie Dooley: Or, like... I don't know...[00:02:25] Preston Meyer: Dinosaur ghosts? Why are we not haunted by the soul of absolutely ravaged Triceratops?[00:02:33] Katie Dooley: And also there's like, I don't know, ghosts feel like they're from a very specific time-period. Like, if you hear, like, how come we all have a ghost kicking around from the 1200s?[00:02:42] Preston Meyer: Right? All ghosts are Dickensian.[00:02:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah, or more modern but, uh, anyway.[00:02:54] Preston Meyer: Death is great, and we have really weird ways of dealing with it.[00:02:58] Katie Dooley: We really do. And I will sort of preface this before we break it down by religion is like we kind of think our way is the right way or the normal way. And reading some of these, some was like, that actually makes a lot of sense on how they handle death. And then some of them, I'm like, that's fucking weird, I won't...[00:03:18] Preston Meyer: Well, if you see one thing often enough, even if you aren't behind it theologically, the habits are still your habits. Normal gets normal.[00:03:27] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So that was, you know, eye opening to say the least.houldUm, anyway, so we kick it off with our good old Abrahamic buddies.[00:03:39] Preston Meyer: Let's do it. Stick with what's most familiar, and then we'll dig into. Yeah, the good stuff. So in Judaism, respect for the dead is one of the most important mitzvot. I feel like we've used this word before. It's commandments. So really take care of the dead. Traditionally, Jewish people bury their dead intact. Some people mostly, you know, you're more reform, more liberal Jewish groups will do the cremation thing. I think that's generally the the theme we'll see moving forward is the more conservatives will not like cremation. We're going to run out of space real soon. An interesting thing that I have read about Judaism is that cremation is counted as destruction of property.[00:04:31] Katie Dooley: Who's property?[00:04:35] Preston Meyer: That's an interesting question.[00:04:37] Katie Dooley: God's property. [00:04:38] Preston Meyer: That makes sense. But there's also the strong family thing in Judaism where there's like you, you belong to your family in this way that you are. If you're not moving that body around yourself anymore, you're property.[00:04:56] Katie Dooley: Oh. We'll, move you around. Oh, wait, that's a different tradition to talk about.[00:05:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, Jewish people tend to observe a strict week of mourning after a funeral. They call this the shiva. Uh, it's just the number seven. So seven days of mourning. And during this process, mirrors in the home are often covered. And it's good to keep candles burning. And mourners will sit on nice low stools, like low as your squatty potty.[00:05:33] Katie Dooley: I'm too old for that. I'm not even that old.[00:05:36] Preston Meyer: It's a little tough, but these are all indications of mourning. Black veil is good for that. Things like that. Yeah.[00:05:43] Katie Dooley: Abrahamic and Western favour black for mourning.[00:05:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah and traditionally. Uh, you don't want to hasten up a death. You don't want to speed things along, even if you know death is imminent. Our country has a pretty interesting relationship with assisted death.[00:06:05] Katie Dooley: I think it's going to have to change anyway. That's not to digress too much. We could go on and chat about that, but I have my opinion.[00:06:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah, having it available makes perfect sense. The reality of the government actually pressuring people into it. I'm not a big fan of.[00:06:26] Katie Dooley: But I yeah, I mean it shouldn't be a government decision, but just like your pets, to let someone live in pain just so they can live as long as possible. And health care costs are only going to get more expensive, for whomever.[00:06:42] Preston Meyer: If the only activity on your schedule of day-to-day for months on end is eating up resources, at some point you got to figure out maybe there's a better plan.[00:06:54] Katie Dooley: Well, and I care less about resources as opposed to quality of life. Like we have family members that live every day in pain and then they're also paying. For fentanyl patches, which are very expensive to manage that pain that they're still in.[00:07:10] Preston Meyer: Fentanyl is a wild thing.[00:07:13] Katie Dooley: Anyway, wild.[00:07:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But as you may have deduced, we're going to talk about some ghosts today.[00:07:23] Katie Dooley: Really wants to talk about ghosts today. So.[00:07:25] Preston Meyer: So the Tanakh does mention ghosts. Um, there's a lot of different kinds of ghosts I've been in unrelated studies, been trying to suss out how different people categorize ghosts.[00:07:39] Katie Dooley: Like angels. [00:07:40] Preston Meyer: with A little bit. Yeah. Okay, so you've got poltergeists who can legit interact with the physical world, and then you've got shades which are not so much.[00:07:51] Katie Dooley: They're there, but they're they can't do anything.[00:07:53] Preston Meyer: Right. Like maybe you can communicate them. Maybe not, but they just they may be barely visible. They might be more visible, but they're not going to interact physically with the world. So they're like a shadow. So that's a shade sort of thing. So what we have in the Tanakh usually talks about shades more than poltergeists that we have in ancient Israel, the belief that ghosts, the spirits of the departed, could be summoned and you could have conversations with them and learn things from them. The story of Saul and the Witch of Endor is an example.[00:08:35] Katie Dooley: That's from Star Wars, right?[00:08:38] Preston Meyer: George Lucas is not half as original as he likes to get credit for. And Endor was just an old place. No Ewoks, which is just Wookiee backwards. Almost not perfect.[00:08:55] Katie Dooley: I see your theory. Yeah, yeah, yeah.[00:08:57] Preston Meyer: No, the plan was that they were going to go to the Wookiee homeworld in Return of the Jedi. And then they couldn't figure out how to do it in a reasonable way. So they decided, okay, we'll make smaller costumes and just cast little people.[00:09:15] Katie Dooley: Okay. Wow. Also, some Star Wars backstory from Preston today. Sorry, I interrupted, and I regret interrupting now.[00:09:26] Preston Meyer: So the shades are a thing that is a matter of concern in Jewish folklore. And in their theology a little bit as well. There are explicit commandments. Do not mess with people who summon ghosts. Which makes sense. And they also talk about shades that can linger in the land and just stay near the place where they lived or where they died. Isaiah talks a little bit about those too. So I think it's kind of interesting. Ghosts, very solid, part of the religious tradition and there are in more recent than biblical texts, traditions of these shades actually possessing a body usually for a short time just to accomplish a specific task. We talked about this a little bit in our voodoo episode. Actually, it's the same sort of idea. [00:10:22] Katie Dooley: Which makes, I was gonna say, makes a bit of sense knowing the origins of Voodoo, right?[00:10:27] Preston Meyer: Well, especially the way it interacted with other religions on its way here. Yeah. So kind of interesting that this possession business is really interesting. And as we get into Christianity, there's stories of ghosts in the New Testament, in Jewish populations where the story feels a lot different, knowing that there's this belief locally that these would be things that dead people are coming back to accomplish, rather than demons like the Greek interpretation jumps onto it. Mhm. It's kind of weird. Kind of fun.[00:11:06] Katie Dooley: Um, you know who loves death? Christian?[00:11:09] Preston Meyer: Uh, I don't even remember where the quote came from originally, but I feel like I've quoted it a few times. Christians are just way too excited to die. '[00:11:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Oh, man, they love it. Why is that Preston?[00:11:23] Preston Meyer: That we talk so much about the promise that the next life is going to be better. And yeah, there's there's so much wrong with this world that it makes sense to hope for something better. But when it gets anywhere close to somebody else realizing that you're too excited to die, you have really screwed up where your focuses are.[00:11:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And even like trying to try to make it all happen faster, trying to bring up the Second Coming. It's like.[00:11:52] Preston Meyer: Well, there's there's a lot of different ideas of what is supposed to trigger the Second Coming.[00:11:58] Katie Dooley: Humans aren't going to do it.[00:12:00] Preston Meyer: It's outside our control. We can't control God.[00:12:03] Katie Dooley: Doesn't mean people aren't trying because they can't wait. Yeah. Anyway, um, as I mentioned in Christians historically also don't like cremation because there would be no corpse when Jesus comes back and raises everyone from the dead, or he Christians believe in a physical resurrection.[00:12:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah, your body's got to rise from the grave. And as you pivot at the waist, you got to be facing east.[00:12:28] Katie Dooley: That sounds horrifying. It's all these and they all have to claw up six feet. Wow. Yeah.[00:12:37] Preston Meyer: Imagine the horror that this event would be.[00:12:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Anyway. But again, a lot of them are more relaxed now. I mean, I think it's just even people in my world, both of my grandparents were cremated and they were Christians. So. Anyway, I feel like they're the most relaxed now of any of the groups. [00:12:59] Preston Meyer: Probably,yeah.[00:13:02] Katie Dooley: I mean, Christian is a really big umbrella.[00:13:06] Preston Meyer: It sure is[00:13:07] But I'm sure there's groups within Christianity that still love a good burial, probably Catholic.[00:13:13] Preston Meyer: So I went to my granddad's funeral last...[00:13:17] Katie Dooley: We both did a bunch of funerals recently.[00:13:18] Preston Meyer: Yeah. What a time.[00:13:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah.[00:13:21] Preston Meyer: And I mean it was interesting that I had never talked about religion at all with my granddad. I'd never thought that he identified as Christian. Found out at his funeral. This was an important detail to somebody. Yeah. So there was a little ash cross dropped on his coffin and was laid down on the ground, making sure that he was facing in a way that if you were to bend at the waist, he'd be facing east. [00:13:52] Katie Dooley: In six feet of dirt.[00:13:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah it was it was an interesting learning experience.[00:13:59] Katie Dooley: Well, good.[00:13:59] Preston Meyer: And now we're talking about death.[00:14:01] Katie Dooley: Now we're talking about death in the terms of Christian wakes are a Christian thing.[00:14:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I haven't heard the word wake used a lot outside of a Catholic context. Um, though I'm certainly can't say that that's not happening, but it's certainly an old tradition.[00:14:20] Katie Dooley: Yeahand as someone who's involved with the Irish community, the Irish still love a good wake. I don't know too many other groups that do it. And I don't know if that's because it's Irish or because it's Catholic, like what that Venn diagram looks like. And how much is just the circles I run in. But the Irish love a good wake. The name comes from staying up long hours watching over the dead while reciting psalms.[00:14:43] Preston Meyer: So we're not talking about the risk of the dead waking up. It's just that you got to stay awake to watch the body.[00:14:50] Katie Dooley: To watch.[00:14:51] Preston Meyer: In case it wakes up.[00:14:53] Katie Dooley: in case it wakes up to make sure.[00:14:55] Preston Meyer: I mean, there it does make sense because historically we we have had situations aplenty enough that we've taken precautions.[00:15:05] Katie Dooley: Bells and...[00:15:05] Preston Meyer: Where the bodies do occasionally get back up again after we thought they were dead. But we're just dumb.[00:15:13] Katie Dooley: If you want to hear a great vaudeville song about exactly that, it's called Tim Finnegan's Wake and basically he's dead and everyone's sad. And then someone spills whiskey on him and he comes back to life because whiskey.[00:15:27] Preston Meyer: It's like the plants in my office.[00:15:31] Katie Dooley: Water. Oh. That's terrible. Preston.[00:15:38] Preston Meyer: Uh, no one's perfect.[00:15:41] Katie Dooley: You know, you don't need to keep plants if that's... If you're just gonna kill him.[00:15:45] Preston Meyer: I'm gonna be honest. I don't keep plants in my office, and the person who generally takes care of them generally takes very good care of them. But there are occasionally exceptions.[00:15:59] Katie Dooley: We're not going to do a full episode on Heaven or Hell. But Christians and even Muslims and Jews, depending on whether you're good or bad, good or bad, you get sent to heaven or hell. Dun dun dun. Yes, that definitely deserves its own episode.[00:16:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah, for most of history, the majority of Christians and an awful lot of segments of the Jewish population as well, have believed in a tiered series of heavens. In our angels episode, we talked about the ninth heaven, where like, the greatest of the angels live forever with God. And, um, the seventh heaven is a thing that happens occasionally in the way. What's the word I'm looking for? It's a common enough English idiom. Um, there's a TV show.[00:16:48] Katie Dooley: I know. [00:16:49] Preston Meyer: Who is in that TV show. I watched it for a year.[00:16:53] Katie Dooley: The most famous person out of Seventh Heaven was Jessica Biel. She was the second oldest daughter. Um, the guy who played the Christian pastor ended up being a pedophile in real life.[00:17:03] Preston Meyer: Oh, no.[00:17:04] Katie Dooley: Yeah, she was the most famous. I can't think of any of the other actors names now. Um, the older there was another.[00:17:10] Preston Meyer: Singer who was, like, really popular for a really short time. That was from that show, wasn't there? I don't know. I've got nothing.[00:17:17] Katie Dooley: Maybe as a side character, but of the family, only Jessica Biel made it anywhere significant.  I mean, JT and all and actually having some decent movie roles afterwards,[00:17:27] Preston Meyer: Right? Good for her.[00:17:30] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean, considering no one else.[00:17:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The phrase I'm on cloud nine. Yeah, I don't think you hear that a whole lot anymore either. But that was a thing.[00:17:38] Katie Dooley: That Cloud Nine superstore.[00:17:39] Preston Meyer: Your grandpappy, probably said... Man, Superstore was a good show.[00:17:43] Katie Dooley: It was a good show. Better than better than Seventh Heaven.[00:17:45] Preston Meyer: Yes. Um, yeah. So for a long time, we talked about these tiered heavens that. Yeah, salvation is universal, but because people suck to different degrees, some of us are going to achieve a better situation.[00:18:04] Or hell yeah.[00:18:05] Preston Meyer: Protestants, especially, like the evangelical movement, mostly believe in the simple dichotomy of black and white, no shades of gray. Everything that's wrong with you is going to be fixed or burn forever in hell. It's hard to say that I see the appeal to that. I don't really like it.[00:18:23] Katie Dooley: I mean.[00:18:24] Preston Meyer: It takes away your identity.[00:18:25] Katie Dooley: Well, and if it's that black and white, then everyone's going to hell because nobody's.[00:18:28] Preston Meyer: And that's absolutely contrary to the mission of Jesus. Oh, well.[00:18:34] Katie Dooley: I guess we'll find out one day.[00:18:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I think it's a lot more reasonable to accept this more classical idea of shades of gray. It just makes sense. Um, different types of people organized and divided based on the way they choose to live their lives would merit different levels of heaven, I think is really a really clean way of explaining it. There was a lady I used to visit for a while when I lived in New Jersey who hated the idea that God would separate people based on any judgment at all. It makes a lot more sense that we would separate ourselves, right? If you like stealing but hate violence, there's a community for you where you're safe from the violent. But the people who don't like being robbed are safe from you.[00:19:32] Katie Dooley: That's good. So you just all rob each other for all time.[00:19:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah,[00:19:37] Katie Dooley: That's a pretty good punishment.[00:19:38] Preston Meyer: Right?[00:19:39] Katie Dooley: You steal something, then you turn around and your shit's got. Ah.[00:19:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah.[00:19:42] Katie Dooley: So you got to steal more.[00:19:44] Preston Meyer: It feels a lot like the punishment fitting the crime. Yeah.[00:19:49] Katie Dooley: Um, we didn't put in our notes, but I know, I mean, I went to a Catholic funeral recently. We were... I don't know if you want to touch on that.[00:19:57] Preston Meyer: Sure, yeah. What is it that you experienced that you want to share?[00:20:00] Katie Dooley: I mean i've been told 2 or 3 Catholic funerals, now? Obviously, this one, most recently Catholic funerals are long because they do a full mass. I will say the thing about Catholic funeral, there's a lot of talk about God and not nearly as much about the person.[00:20:18] Preston Meyer: Sure. Now, is this a mass in addition to the daily mass, or is it just a not just a funeral attached to the daily mass?[00:20:27] Katie Dooley: No, they do... My understanding is they do a separate funeral mass.[00:20:31] Preston Meyer: I mean, nobody's accusing the Catholics of being efficient.[00:20:35] Katie Dooley: No, because it also took a long time. And then of course, I was like looking for the reliquary, because now we know from our lovely guest, Frank McMahon, confirmed that there is a holy relic in every Catholic church. So I'm looking for bits of saints.[00:20:49] Preston Meyer: Well, at the bare minimum, they'll have one locked away in the tabernacle, right? And you wouldn't get to see that. But yeah, if there's more about on on display.[00:20:59] Katie Dooley: There was something pretty fancy in a corner. And I was like, I don't know what that is. Okay, I didn't get close enough because I left the front for the family, but, uh.[00:21:07] Preston Meyer: No, no, you got to push your way through during a funeral.[00:21:10] Katie Dooley: During it. I need a front row seat, please, because I just need a front row seat. Um, but that's the biggest thing. Like. I mean, the last funeral I went to was as secular as a funeral gets. And they talk a lot about the person that passed. Um, so it's just. Different. But yeah, you know, everyone, priests especially very hopeful that she's in a better place. And we're the ones who are the losers an I don't know, I mean, you know, I don't believe any of that. I was like, is she. I mean, it's nice to think, but. Why are there no bear ghosts?[00:21:54] Preston Meyer: Because they don't have unfinished business. They got their honey. They're happy.[00:22:01] Katie Dooley: But. Right. If there's no bear heaven and bear hell, why is there human heaven? Human hell? Why are there no bear ghosts? That's my thesis.[00:22:14] Preston Meyer: I have a hypothesis. That bear heaven is fish hell. It's a very efficient system, and it's good enough that they don't need to linger here on Earth.[00:22:29] Katie Dooley: I've heard that, uh, squirrel hell is dog heaven.[00:22:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Perfect. So Christianity does inherit a lot from Jewish thought. It makes sense. Dispensationalism has got some tricky bits to it, but the inheritance system is inarguable. And that includes the matter of ghosts and the idea of possessing spirits I already mentioned shows up with the New Testament, but Greco-Roman thought shows a lot of its influence in the way that we see demons described in the Christian tradition that almost every ghost that you see described in the New Testament, apart from when they think that maybe Jesus is a ghost until he says, touch me and find out. [00:23:17] Katie Dooley: Pull my finger. Preston just wiggled his finger at me, so... "Pull my finger." - Jesus, Matthew 22:34.[00:23:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah, all the the ghosts are, well, terrible demons possessing people or making everybody have a bad time. Jehovah's Witnesses and Christadelphians outright deny the possibility of ghosts, which is really frustrating for them when you point out the holes in that logic. But. Oh, well they just stopped visiting.[00:23:52] Katie Dooley: As much as I, uh, you know, try to be fair to... They're the least Christian of the Christians.[00:23:59] Preston Meyer: I mean, it's so hard to delineate what what is Christian and what isn't.[00:24:03] Katie Dooley: I know, but that's was my point. I was trying to poorly word, but yeah, but they're at least Christian. [00:24:12] Preston Meyer: I can't argue with that in this moment.[00:24:15] Katie Dooley: My next thesis.[00:24:18] Preston Meyer: Um, Seventh-day Adventist got a lot of those in my family. They teach that any ghost you might encounter is absolutely, certainly a demon in disguise.[00:24:28] Katie Dooley: Cool.[00:24:29] Preston Meyer: Sure. Not that I'm encountering a whole lot of ghosts.[00:24:34] Katie Dooley: No, but I just, like. I'm imagining a ghost pulling off its ghost mask, like in Scooby Doo and be like there's a demon under here.[00:24:43] Preston Meyer: I like that imagery.[00:24:44] Katie Dooley: Thank you.[00:24:45] Preston Meyer: But generally everybody agrees they can basically shapeshift.[00:24:48] Katie Dooley: Oh, oh that makes a lot more sense, but it's way less cool.[00:24:54] Preston Meyer: Right? Most other Christians admit the possibility of the disguise problem, but acknowledge that a ghost could genuinely be the dead person you're after. The ghost that we see in the Witch of Endor story. It's not really answered in a really concrete way. Whether or not this should be expected to be a demon in disguise or the dead prophet returned. Because that wasn't the important part of the story. The important part of the story was stop getting witches to summon demons. Many Christians believe that the dead can take on the role of angel.[00:25:34] Katie Dooley: Which is where, as we're writing these notes, I was like, we need to separate heaven and hell. And even we talked about angels. And I was like, but dead people become angels.[00:25:43] Preston Meyer: Right.[00:25:43] Katie Dooley: One so yeah, there's like a whole other piece to this.[00:25:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, the Revelation talks about how there's like a third of the host of Heaven fell with Lucifer, as most people prefer to call him.[00:25:57] Katie Dooley: Satan is accurate.[00:25:59] Preston Meyer:  [00:25:59]Satan is a far more helpful thing here. And so those generally [00:26:03] get to be the ones that we call demons within Christian theology models. But there are also talks of, well, if you're just a bad person, you can become a demon that way too. It's exciting. It gives you something to aspire to if you don't want to change your ways. Lots of goodies.[00:26:23] Katie Dooley: Cool. The last of the Abrahamic religions, of course, is Islam. And I mean last chronologically[00:26:23] Preston Meyer: Of course and the last one we're talking about. [00:26:33] Katie Dooley: And the last one we're talking about today.[00:26:34] Preston Meyer: Because we usually stick. [00:26:36] Katie Dooley: Last but not least. Very similar, obviously, it's been influenced by Judaism and Christianity. When death is imminent, a family member or close friend is present to say the shahada, which is the, uh,[00:26:49] Preston Meyer: There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.[00:26:53] Katie Dooley: Yes. Uh, there's a word for it. Something of faith.[00:26:57] Preston Meyer: Uh, statement of faith. Statement.[00:26:58] Katie Dooley: Declaration. Declaration. Thank you. Declaration of faith. We talked about this in our Islam so years ago. But the shahada is also recited when you're born. So it's this. If you're born a Muslim, it's kind of a nice full-circle moment.[00:27:12] Preston Meyer: It's a very convenient conversion tool. All you got to do is shout that in somebody's ear and bam.[00:27:18] Katie Dooley: You actually shout it?[00:27:20] Preston Meyer: I mean, some people like like the video of the guy who doing like a really awful baptism of a baby with dunk, dunk dunk dunk dunk.[00:27:28] Katie Dooley: Baby gets shaken baby.[00:27:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And the parents are just horrified. There are people who shout at the children. But that's not likely the typical format.[00:27:39] Katie Dooley: All right. Again with like with the other Abrahamic faiths and more strictly Muslims do not cremate their dead. Some Jews do. I'd say half of Christians do, and no Muslims do. They do not cremate their dead because they believe in the physical resurrection that will happen. And autopsies are also forbidden. Unnecessary autopsies, obviously. I presume in the case of murder they would do an autopsy. But if someone dies in their home, they don't do autopsies[00:28:11] Preston Meyer: Right. There's I mean, there are places where autopsies just aren't happening. But here in North America, yeah, if something bad happens, it's going to happen. And you can put on your frowny face all you want. It's still going to happen. You just muscle through it.[00:28:30] Katie Dooley: Uh, but organ donation is okay because it helps people.[00:28:33] Preston Meyer: So I'm really glad that exception exists. It feels weird.[00:28:39] Katie Dooley: It feels contradictory.[00:28:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But I appreciate that exception exists because it helps people.[00:28:45] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean, you know, someone's dead and you don't care why they died. What is the point of an autopsy? Right. If they're 80 something years old.[00:28:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah.[00:28:57] Katie Dooley: And they died at home in their bed or in a hospital in the bed.[00:29:00] Preston Meyer: There's gonna come a time 100 years from now, and our podcast will still be available on podcast libraries. And somebody's going to hear that it was normal for us to die at 80 and go. What the hell was wrong with these people?[00:29:16] Katie Dooley: You think our life expectancy is going to get that?[00:29:18] Preston Meyer: I think our life expectancy can reasonably be expected to be extended by decades. I got high hopes. We'll see.[00:29:28] Katie Dooley: Uh, bodies are originally washed and wrapped in a white sheet before burial. And they are washed three times by a family member of the same gender as the deceased. Sharia law dictates that funeral planning start immediately after the death, and bodies are buried quickly. There are no viewings, so no wakes. You did not stay up all night drinking with your dead grandma. Have you seen Derry Girls?[00:29:55] Preston Meyer: I've seen a little bit of Derry Girls, but I definitely have not seen whatever has come to your mind.[00:30:00] Katie Dooley: There's an episode and they're at someone's wake. And my favorite character, Sister Michael, she's a curmudgeonly nun. Who I don't even know if she has that much faith. And there's one part. She's at this wake and she's talking to a family member. The family member is very annoying. She's like, oh my God, is this my wake? Am I dead? Am I in hell?[00:30:23] Preston Meyer: I love it.[00:30:26] Katie Dooley: Sister Michael, I'll show it to you after I love her. I watched through the whole series, and it's filled with charming teens. I was like, no, that grumpy old lady. That's my favorite.[00:30:38] Preston Meyer: That sounds right. So, if you were wondering. Yes, Muslims believe in ghosts. Uh, the spirits of the dead are supposed to go on to an underworld called Barzakh.[00:30:51] Katie Dooley: Oh, that's a good name.[00:30:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I like the name. Be honest, I did not look up what the name means. I'm sure it's got meaning, but I'll look it up later. Improper burial can impede the journey to this underworld.[00:31:03] Katie Dooley: Oh, that's why they're so regimented in it, okay.[00:31:06] Preston Meyer: Because you don't want to risk screwing this up, and then you've got a ghost wandering around because, I mean, if you ever notice ghosts, it's not because they're doing nice things for you. Nobody's emptying your dishwasher. It's not happening.[00:31:19] Katie Dooley: Oh, you seen that webcomic of this little ghost? And he's like, I love home decorating. And he's, like, moving around frames and vases, and the family's like, ah, but he's just this cute little ghost. It's like, I love this work. It makes me way too happy, but also sad.[00:31:34] Preston Meyer: I love it. Yeah, that's great. Um, so the shades of righteous spirits are expected to linger at their own graves, which feels a little bit weird. I had to dig at this. There's like, the soul goes on to the underworld and awaits resurrection. But a shade, a shadow of that soul lingers at the grave so that people can come and talk to it and get whatever great mystic knowledge is reserved for, not the living. But apparently the shades are willing to share it sometime.[00:32:16] Katie Dooley: It feels like a pretty common practice of like.[00:32:18] Preston Meyer: Yeah.[00:32:19] Katie Dooley: Visiting grave to talk to a loved one.[00:32:21] Preston Meyer: I would say it's pretty close to universal that you would go to wherever you buried your loved ones to talk to them, hoping to get some sort of answer.[00:32:32] Katie Dooley: But they believe that they actually stay there. That's cool.[00:32:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's kind of nifty.[00:32:38] Katie Dooley: Yeah. All right. Heading to the East air quotes.[00:32:44] Preston Meyer: Vaguely eastward from where we were.[00:32:46] Katie Dooley: Or where we're heading to the Dharmic religions is actually a better title. Hinduism.[00:32:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah.[00:32:54] Katie Dooley: So when death is near, it is common to obtain water for purification from the Ganges River, which is considered sacred.[00:33:02] Preston Meyer: Remember we talked about how the Hindu people are the river folks.[00:33:05] Katie Dooley: The river folk is the part to be surrounded by loved ones at the time of your death. If the body is left alone, uh, light, ideally, a candle should be left near the body as close to the head as can be done safely so.[00:33:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah. You don't want them catching on fire.[00:33:20] Katie Dooley: No. Uh, to comfort the lingering spirit. Generally for Hindus, families are encouraged to remain conservative in their mourning, allowing the soul to move on quickly to its next stage. The soul is said to linger as long as people hold it with their thoughts. So mourners are encouraged to focus on happy thoughts and memories. I like that.[00:33:41] Preston Meyer: Right? So it's okay to mourn, but not too long and not too negatively. Which is good. Remember the good times.[00:33:51] Katie Dooley: Families typically prefer to bury the body within a day. Any work the coroner might need to do is a major inconvenience.[00:33:58] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's true, generally.[00:34:02] Katie Dooley: All organs need to be returned to their place before burial. So no organ donation here.[00:34:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I'm there's definitely going to be exceptions to that. Some people are a lot more liberal than but the the general religious expectation is leave it be.[00:34:20] Katie Dooley: The soul is believed to carry on to its next incarnation, whether as an angel, a human or an animal. Or better yet, escape the cycle of samsara and recombine with Brahma, the source of all creation, potentially to be recycled into creation. But that would be as a nearly totally new soul.[00:34:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the this cycle of samsara is. A really interesting thing to study so much potential or just go back and recombine with God. And maybe he'll use you again.[00:34:54] Katie Dooley: Maybe he'll use you for something else. You've done it. But now you're a rock. Because he needed a rock right here. Yeah, ad if you'll recall, the you come back based on how good you are. Good you were your karma in your past lives. So if you're doing good, you'll come back as something better. You're not doing so good. You're heading back to that rock.[00:35:18] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And that's historically that was like the way to move between casts was just.[00:35:26] Katie Dooley: Being reborn.[00:35:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And now we've seen in some places some movement between castees is more possible than in other places.[00:35:37] Katie Dooley: I mean, this generaetion, I think, is caring less about caste than ever before. And I'm sure in the next 20, 30, 40 years, it'll...[00:35:47] Preston Meyer: Get a little bit better every generation. Yeah, one can hope anyway.[00:35:52] Katie Dooley: Tell me about the Ghost, though.[00:35:53] Preston Meyer: Oh, man. So there's some there's some baggage here with Hindu ghosts. You're supposed to move on to the next life.[00:36:01] Katie Dooley: So if you don't, you're downgrading.[00:36:05] Preston Meyer: Right? You're supposed to get a new body.[00:36:07] Katie Dooley: So a ghost is like a variant of Loki. You've come out of the timeline.[00:36:14] Preston Meyer: A little bit.[00:36:15] Katie Dooley: Interesting.[00:36:16] Preston Meyer: I mean, to the point where you've got folks like the TVA saying, no, you need to get back in line. Yeah, that's a little that is a fair enough analogy of what we're looking at. Okay. It's not perfect.[00:36:29] Katie Dooley: But you're right because you're either supposed to come back better or come back worse. So if you're not coming back at all and you're not escaping samsara, there's a problem. Okay. I can't wait to hear this.[00:36:40] Preston Meyer: So go start a very serious matter. Reincarnation is the normal path. Something is keeping spirits from passing on to the next phase, which could theoretically be nirvana. But if you're in this situation where you're lingering here, maybe that next step isn't Nirvana. So there's a good list of things that might prevent a spirit from moving on, and thus lingering is a noticeable and likely malevolent spirit. We've got improper burial. So a lot of religions worry about burying people properly to prevent ghost problems. Uh, we've got violent death. Loads of fun there. Unfinished business. I mean, that's bad karma. Most of these are bad karma type things. Sometimes it's not your karma, but other people's karma on you. But if you've got unfinished business, that's your own karma. And the worst of all of these, the one that had some serious baggage that I thought was really interesting is if a woman dies in childbirth or at the abuse of her in-laws, then she is said to return as a churel or chudel or whatever. 400 different ways are pronouncing that based on the various languages of the region. A malevolent and destructive spirit is what a churel is, and they are focused on the destruction of the family that wronged her. Yeah, it's apparently very dramatic, caused a lot of problems, and they've got ghost hunters to deal with that.[00:38:15] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I was going to say that sounds like the plot of a good Bollywood movie.[00:38:20] Preston Meyer: There's got to be one, right? The odds are good.[00:38:23] Katie Dooley: The odds are... I might have to do some digging. Yeah. Cool. Buddhism.[00:38:30] Preston Meyer: So I remember showing you a video a little while ago that looked super suspicious.[00:38:35] Katie Dooley: I remember when I saw this, I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. Um, so Buddhism sort of overarching, very similar to Hinduism, trying to escape the cycle of life and death. But there's some nuances and some practices within Buddhism that are neat slash kinda gross.[00:38:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they're care for the dead is completely incompatible with what we see in the Hindu tradition.[00:38:58] Katie Dooley: I'm tempted to put a trigger warning on this part of the episode. I found it a bit gross. Sure, mostly the sokushinbutsu.[00:39:06] Preston Meyer: You've been warned. Skip ahead five minutes if you don't want to handle this.[00:39:09] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's just like body horror is a bit strong, but it is a little gross. So we're gonna talk about Tibetan sky burials. Tell me about this video that you showed me.[00:39:18] Preston Meyer: So there was this person in a little corral full of vultures because they don't always just fly around waiting for stuff. Sometimes they know where the good stuff is, and sometimes they're part of a farm. And this person was just chopping up a human skeleton up. It was a pretty clean skeleton. Somebody had already taken care of business.[00:39:39] Katie Dooley: And it was very clear from the rib cage that it was a human skeleton.[00:39:43] Preston Meyer: It was very obviously human.[00:39:45] Katie Dooley: So this was a Tibetan sky burial. Sky burial. I don't know if it was in Tibet, but that's where it comes from. The term sky burial is a Western term. The actual practice, the translation translates to giving alms to the birds, which I kind of love.[00:40:00] Preston Meyer: It's for the birds.[00:40:02] Katie Dooley: This is a practice where the corpse is placed on a mountain to decompose through exposure to the elements and animal scavenging. Obviously, in the case Preston's talking about, for whatever reason, they need to speed it up. Or.[00:40:14] Preston Meyer: I mean, this could have been taking care of the skeleton after the scavenging. Yeah.[00:40:20] Katie Dooley: So Vajrayana Buddhists believe that the body is an empty vessel once the spirit has left. So none of this physical resurrection and therefore there's no reason to keep it. The person's got a new body somewhere else. They died. They've resurrected. They're not sorry, reincarnated somewhere else.[00:40:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah, Buddhists just generally aren't terribly worried about the corpse. And that's nice. I can appreciate that. Just don't worry about it.[00:40:49] Katie Dooley: Another Buddhist practice that mildly traumatized me. And it has a I feel like a deeper theological discussion we could talk about is Sokushinbutsu is the practice of self-mummification.[00:41:06] Preston Meyer: So gross.[00:41:06] Katie Dooley: Japanese. It started by Japanese Buddhist monks. Um, it's an ascetic practice. Acetic, ascetic? I always say it wrong.[00:41:14] Preston Meyer: Acetic is a kind of acid.[00:41:17] Katie Dooley: It's an ascetic practice that takes about 3000 days. That's what, eight years, roughly.[00:41:22] Preston Meyer: Sure.[00:41:23] Katie Dooley: To complete. And it involves essentially eating a tree. Monks would eat pine needles, resin and seeds found in these trees, and the process eventually eliminates all body fat.[00:41:38] Preston Meyer: So you've you've had Buckley's tastes awful, but it works.[00:41:42] Katie Dooley: Yeah, that's part of the tree.[00:41:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the reason that it tastes awful and works is because pine needle oil is mildly toxic. That's why grass doesn't grow right up to the base of the tree. Why would you want to eat pine needles? Unless, of course, this is your plan.[00:41:59] Katie Dooley: Well. And yes. And this is I'll finish explaining it. But this like this idea and I guess it's like self-flagellation of, like, what is so important that you're willing to do this. And as an atheist I'm like, mm, nothing. Anyway, we'll we'll come back to that. Continue explaining this horrific process. So eating the tree eliminates all body fat. It does result in the starvation that it leaves the body well preserved, and they found corpses with skin, hair, teeth, nails in the forest, which is wild, and obviously probably because you're right of the biotoxins animals don't touch them right, and the skin doesn't rot away. So I don't know who figured this out. I don't know why anyone wanted to figure this out, but.[00:42:44] Preston Meyer: Right. There's there's so much that we do that like knowing it. Sure. We can keep going. How did we first find out? Like cheese. The milk went so bad and then all of a sudden was fine again.[00:43:03] Katie Dooley: There's a lot of things in life. I'm like, how did we figure this out? This is one I don't think we needed to figure out but... So the practice has been banned since the late 1800s in Japan. But and there's pictures of this if you do like this kind of stuff. The Buddhist monk Luang Pho Daeng died in 1973. He was a Thai monk from Thailand after practicing sokushinbutsu, and his body is actually on display and they just die while meditating. So he's sitting there cross-legged and they put sunglasses on them because apparently his eye sockets are pretty horrific. But, uh, I mean, it's an interesting example of... They didn't do anything to him. He's just he's behind glass now.[00:43:47] Preston Meyer: But I would hope so because people, you know, people are going to be touching. Right.[00:43:53] Katie Dooley: Yeah. But he's they didn't do any other sort of embalming to him besides...[00:43:58] Preston Meyer: What he did himself, what he...[00:43:59] Katie Dooley: Did to himself. So anyway, um, yeah, it's an interesting like but I guess we even have cases like 9/11. What do you believe in so much that you're willing to die for it? Something that takes 3000 days of some commitment[00:43:59] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, there's a lot of things I like to eat that would slow this process down.[00:44:20] Katie Dooley: I don't I don't think you're supposed to eat other things.[00:44:23] Preston Meyer: I know it's a major commitment.[00:44:25] Katie Dooley: You'd be like, you'd eat like pine needles and then be like, oh, but a burger sounds great.[00:44:29] Preston Meyer: Right?[00:44:32] Katie Dooley: Um, yeah. And the the Luang Pho Daeng, he had six kids and a wife, and he left to become a Buddhist monk. And then he decided.[00:44:41] Preston Meyer: He would end it all the slowest way possible.[00:44:43] Katie Dooley: The slowest way possible. And I just, I, I don't know, I just I can't wrap my head around it, but I guess it's.[00:44:50] Preston Meyer: Not for me.[00:44:51] Katie Dooley: I guess. But John Paul II flogged himself and people flew into the Twin Towers and Luang Pho Dang starved himself to death. I don't, I guess. Maybe I'm just too apathetic, Preston.[00:45:05] Preston Meyer: Maybe, I don't know.[00:45:08] Katie Dooley: Maybe I just like life too much.[00:45:10] Preston Meyer: There's a lot to like about life.[00:45:12] Katie Dooley: I think so, but.[00:45:14] Preston Meyer: All right. Well, believe it or not, Buddhists believe in ghosts, too.[00:45:19] Katie Dooley: What? I'm seeing a theme. This might be the only universal belief in the entire world. I don't believe in ghosts, though, so.[00:45:26] Preston Meyer: Well, we've already pointed out a couple of groups that deny the universality of the belief. Jehovah's Witnesses and Christadelphians.[00:45:34] Katie Dooley: But I do know atheists that believe in ghosts, which is funny to me.[00:45:37] Preston Meyer: Right? You can believe in ghosts without believing in God.[00:45:39] Katie Dooley: No, but I just.[00:45:41] Preston Meyer: No. I think if you do believe in ghosts, it's easy to talk somebody into believing that there's more. And then bam, you get into the mysterious agnostic belief in some sort of god.[00:45:56] Katie Dooley: Or some sort of something.[00:45:58] Preston Meyer: Well, even even if the universe is God, you still got all God.[00:46:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Anyway, I was so excited to find a universal belief, its not even universal that puppies are adorable.[00:46:09] Preston Meyer: Right? Puppies are haram.[00:46:12] Katie Dooley: Are haram. Anyway.[00:46:14] Preston Meyer: All right, so many Buddhists celebrate a ghost festival. Where they offer food to ghosts who might linger. This is an expression of compassion mostly, which is one of the greatest virtues of Buddhism. And in return, the ghosts do not bother the community, which seems to usually work, or, depending on your measure of things, maybe always works.[00:46:39] Katie Dooley: Because they don't exist.[00:46:41] Preston Meyer: Right? Um, ghosts might also move onto a realm specifically for hungry ghosts, where there are no offerings and everybody is just hungry all the time.[00:46:57] Katie Dooley: That sounds scary.[00:46:58] Preston Meyer: That sounds like hell. I feel like this is a really nice way of saying they're in hell.[00:47:04] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I don't want to be hungry.[00:47:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That sucks. In the Tibetan tradition. A bothersome ghost can be captured with a special trap and extra killed with a ritual dagger, sending it to be reborn again.[00:47:20] Katie Dooley: My, do you know what that reminds me of? When people say he was killed to death, I'm like, uh huh, uh huh. Yep.[00:47:27] Preston Meyer: Redundant. [00:47:28] Preston Meyer: Murder-Death-Killed.[00:47:29] Katie Dooley: Murdered. Death killed. He was murdered to death.[00:47:33] Preston Meyer: But if a ghost is sticking around, that's. Yeah, there is a procedure in place to kill the ghost so that it is not an operating ghost any further.[00:47:44] Katie Dooley: I was going to say that's the only context in which I will accept killed to death is when you're killing a ghost.[00:47:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's. It doesn't fit in the frame that we have for ghosts here. It's different than exorcism, which is kind of what we would talk about, about getting rid of a ghost. But there there are some, some commonalities. There is one particular ghost that I think is rather interesting. And the Dalai Lama agrees. Maybe not for the same reason. Dorjee Shugden is a powerful 17th century monk, I say is because that's what some people believe. In Tibet, he's revered by some who claim that his lingering ghost is a god. Most Buddhists don't really mess with arguments about theology. Don't worry about God's worry about your own path through samsara.[00:48:40] Katie Dooley: This one is hot topic.[00:48:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah, because a lot of people believe that Shugden is a God that is, like worthy of worship and like focus on him a fair bit. And other people, not so much. Of course, the Dalai Lama is not a fan at all. He says that Shugden is an evil spirit. And yeah, this division is causing a lot of contention in Tibet.[00:49:06] Katie Dooley: Sikhs, Sikhism, like Buddhists and Hindus, believe in reincarnation, which is interesting because it's also a monotheistic religion. Remember, it's the baby of Hinduism and Islam.[00:49:18] Preston Meyer: Hindu's a little bit monotheistic. That's true. Depending on your interpretation of all of the things and expressions of God.[00:49:26] Katie Dooley: Um, so Sikhs believe in reincarnation that comes from the Hinduism side and to eventually escape the cycle and become one with God, but only one God. I guess, as you pointed out, Brahma.[00:49:39] Preston Meyer: Right, one, three, 700 million, whatever.[00:49:43] Katie Dooley: It's fine. Cremation is the preferred and traditionally accepted method to deal with the deceased in Sikhism. This is the first time we've seen that. [00:49:54] Preston Meyer: It's like a system built around being wise in a very densely populated part of the world. Thought of a solution to one of a few problems.[00:50:06] Katie Dooley: Family members are expected to witness the cremation process, which I thought was interesting. I don't think that's very typical here.[00:50:12] Preston Meyer: I don't know if we make it very convenient to witness a cremation here.[00:50:16] Katie Dooley: I think you can if you ask, but I don't think it's typicalbecause when we put down Paige, if you've heard our little jingles on the podcast, there's no more jingles anymore. It was an option to watch her be cremated. And I was like, no, I'm good. But I haven't had a human in my life cremated recently, so I don't know.[00:50:35] Preston Meyer: Fingers crossed that it doesn't happen.[00:50:37] Katie Dooley: I'm gonna do that.[00:50:38] Preston Meyer: And if you're curious why people cross their fingers or knock on wood, we did an episode on that a little while ago.[00:50:45] Katie Dooley: Ashes are scattered into a river. They believe that the body should be returned to the earth, and that the family left behind doesn't carry this attachment to the body. In instances where Sikhs may choose burial, headstones are not allowed because the body is just that shell that we've seen in the other Dharmic religions. There should be no attachment to the body. A Sikh funeral is antam sanskar. Antam Sanskar which translates to final ceremony. TThe deceased Sikh is dressed in their five Sikh articles of faith before the funeral and cremation. So that's the Kesh, Kanga, Katcha, Khara and kirpan. If you want to know what those are.[00:51:31] Preston Meyer: Check out.[00:51:32] Katie Dooley: Our episode. One of those is a little knife. Yeah, that's the kirpan. After a funeral service, family and friends gather to read the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. Which is the final guru and the holy book.[00:51:46] Preston Meyer: So as an heir to both Hindu and Muslim philosophies, the ideas of ghosts live in both realms. To some extent, we do have the worry of the ghosts of the abused, that maybe they'll come back and cause some problems, and it's kind of hard to work that out of the faith when it's still living in at least the more secular portion of the Hindu reality. Yeah. Nothing terribly new and exciting there.[00:52:13] Katie Dooley: Now we have some outliers, some that attach directly to religion. Some are just cultural practices around death. Now that we all know what Zoroastrianism is. They are actually doing something very similar to the sky funerals, they have a tower of silence.[00:52:27] Preston Meyer: That sounds really cool.[00:52:29] Katie Dooley: It does. They put their dead on this tower raised platform for scavengers and the elements to aid in decomposition. It is a circular ray structure used just for this purpose. This keeps corpses which are considered to be unclean, away from the sacred elements of fire, earth and water.[00:52:53] Preston Meyer: Up in the air.[00:52:55] Katie Dooley: Well, there's not much you can do about that. I figured it this way. Right. You either has to be Earth. Well, I guess any of them. One of them has to be tainted, though, to get rid of the body. So they've opted for air and give it to the animals. I didn't read the full article because it was behind a paywall, which I hate, but, uh, there's no Towers of Silence in in the West. So that has led Zoroastrians to have to compromise on their last funeral rites and traditions, which is kind of sad. I mean, right, and this is where.[00:53:28] Preston Meyer: Fire is such a big thing, there's always these these fire temples for Zoroastrianism. And part of me wants to say, well, just build a separate fire for cremation, but that is still putting an unclean thing in sacred fire.[00:53:44] Katie Dooley: But and this is where, you know, I said at the top of the episode, some things make a lot of sense, like getting rid of a body in a very both economical and ecological way makes a ton of sense, and I don't think it gets more sanitary than a tower of silence. Whatever, you could argue a sky burial mound could get into the water system or whatever. But yeah, you're right. The West is so uptight about. [00:54:14] Preston Meyer: Dead bodies.[00:54:15] Katie Dooley: Dead bodies, so do I think. You know, eating a tree to die makes a lot of sense. No. Do I think, uh, sky burial does? Yeah.[00:54:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Fair.[00:54:25] Katie Dooley: And so it made me sad for them. Like, imagine not being able to have a funeral the way you won't have a funeral for a loved one.[00:54:32] Preston Meyer: There's. There's got to be a way that we can work around existing systems to make that work out.[00:54:39] Katie Dooley: I don't know, I feel like you. Well, no, because there'd still be laws. But the solution is buying private land, right? But you still have to circumvent laws with dead bodies. And I don't know what laws.[00:54:49] Preston Meyer: Cops aren't allowed on our property.[00:54:51] Katie Dooley: Yeah, um.[00:54:52] Preston Meyer: What's the tower for? None of your business. It's a religious structure.[00:54:55] Katie Dooley: You can't see what's on top of it. Of course we have, of course, drones and airplanes and all sorts of things. People know there's dead.[00:55:01] Preston Meyer: There's. Yeah. New project. I'm going to design a structure that isn't super friendly to drones, where you could have a tower of silence.[00:55:13] Katie Dooley: Okay.[00:55:16] Preston Meyer: This would be a thing that will happen a lot more easily if I knew people who were Zoroastrians.[00:55:24] Katie Dooley: Well, if you know a Zoroastrian... If you know Zoroastrian, put them in touch with us. I would just love to interview them and, uh, Preston can talk about his scheme with them.[00:55:37] Preston Meyer: Yep. All right. New Orleans jazz funeral is a fun little extra thing to talk about. Yeah. So, Louisiana. I've never been. Have you been to Louisiana?[00:55:50] Katie Dooley: No. It's actually quite high on my list of places in the States to go. Um, I would really like to go to New Orleans.[00:55:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's from from what I've seen on TV and movies. A great collection of people. That's about what I got for my own knowledge. But luckily we do reading.[00:56:09] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And I mean, I this is nice because we have talked about Voodoo and a little bit of Hoodoo in the past.[00:56:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So there's strong colonial past there. Connects to Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. There is a great tradition of military style brass bands at these funeral processions. You can you can find videos on YouTube. They're great. Mix that with African spiritual practices, Catholic influences. And you know, this being the birthplace of jazz, New Orleans has a pretty unique funerary tradition. Lots of dancing. I've seen more than one casket drop.[00:56:48] Katie Dooley: I mean, that person doesn't care anymore.[00:56:52] Preston Meyer: And everybody's having a good time. You're like, for sure there are going to be a couple living people who are a little uncomfortable with dropping a casket, but that's not a thing that has to be remembered. Yeah. They really incorporate celebration into the mourning. Yeah. You lost somebody you love, but you get to celebrate the time you did enjoy with them and celebrate the fact that you've been brought together with your community and family.[00:57:17] Katie Dooley: You know, I'm just going to touch on this right now because I'm thinking of it. Our good friend Sarah Snyder, our very first ever guest on the podcast, she shared a I guess it's a meme that's not a funny one the other day. And she said, things that are said at funerals should be set at birthdays. And I thought, I'm going to start doing that. I'm going to write long loving cards to my friends now. So I like it. It doesn't all get left to the last minute.[00:57:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah.[00:57:42] Katie Dooley: Ghanaian fantasy coffins. So interesting. We'll post some pictures on the day this launches on our Discord. These are works of art used by the Ga people of Southern Ghana. They believe that our lives continue into the next world the same as they did on Earth. So the coffins represent the deceased by using different symbols. Fantasy coffins are shaped and painted. You can get them in ships, mermaids, chickens, shoes and so much more. And yeah, often they use it to represent what your job was in life. So pilots will be buried in planes and.[00:58:20] Preston Meyer: So I can get I wrap my head around a lot of careers that would get you buried in something that's shaped like a ship. What do I do I have to do to get buried inside a mermaid?[00:58:32] Katie Dooley: I would also say ship related work. Ocean navigating. You can also be a professional mermaid now.[00:58:41] Preston Meyer: Okay, fair.[00:58:43] Katie Dooley: I don't know how popular that is in Ghana I feel like it's a real white person thing.[00:58:46] Preston Meyer: Famadihana is the traditional Madagascar ceremony of the Malagasy people, of turning of the bones. It's basically just a way to continually remember the deceased. Bodies of ancestors are removed from their resting place, rewrapped and their names written on the shroud to be remembered. That's kind of nice. A little gross.[00:59:11] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I was gonna say I want to be the person. There's like a there's a point where is horrible. And then once they're just bones, it's fine. But there's like the first couple of years where they're still icky. I wouldn't want to be that person.[00:59:24] Preston Meyer: But yeah, when it's sticky, it's a bad time. Yeah.[00:59:27] Katie Dooley: But once they're just clean bones, yeah, that's not so bad.[00:59:32] Preston Meyer: And depending on the situation, I mean, it might not even be a long time, right?[00:59:36] Katie Dooley: I don't know how long the body takes to decompose.[00:59:39] Preston Meyer: It varies on region. Right. Well Madagascar is wet.[00:59:42] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And then I mean over here they don't decompose because we put so many fucking toxic shit into them, which.[00:59:47] Preston Meyer: There is that[00:59:49] Katie Dooley: Please don't do that to me. I want to be a mushroom.[00:59:52] Preston Meyer: Okay?[00:59:53] Katie Dooley: Hollow me out and then turn me into mushrooms.[00:59:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Okay, so there is more to this process. They don't just wrap them up and then stick them back where they found them. They dance with their skeletons. They have a real party. I'm almost. I'm gonna say Mexican Day of the dead level.[01:00:12] Katie Dooley: Yeah.[01:00:13] Preston Meyer: But there's this practice creeps a lot of people out, and so they're doing it less and less. I don't know if it needs to be stamped out. It doesn't feel like that is necessary, but the Christian missionaries have really put a lot of pressure on them to stop, even though the Catholic Church is okay with it.[01:00:32] Katie Dooley: The Catholic Church has come out to say they're okay with it. So I'm guessing these are Protestant missionaries that are like, maybe we shouldn't dance with bones. Catholic Church has come out and said, no, it's fine. Have fun.[01:00:43] Preston Meyer: I mean, especially this newest pope. He's mostly like, yeah, keep doing your good things. Please don't leave the church.[01:00:52] Katie Dooley: I just heard by the time this episode comes out, this will be really old news, but that he's, like, not approved of gay marriage. But there's steps being taken to... You can't call them marriage, but you can get blessed.[01:01:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The Pope did a little while ago announced that he will bless gay unions, which is. It's a step. It is a step.[01:01:24] Katie Dooley: So, anyway, uh, Preston mentioned the day of the dead, and we've talked about it a little bit before. And it is, of course, the subject of video or popular animated films. The day of the Dead is November 2nd, religiously. Secularly. It has extended to more than a single day, and the festival is much more fun. The ghosts aren't likely offended, right?[01:01:47] Preston Meyer: It's just loads of rum. Loads and loads and loads of rum.[01:01:50] Katie Dooley: For that part of the world.[01:01:51] Preston Meyer: Bright colors and parades. All right, so I did a bunch of deep diving into near death experiences. Um, so research into this field of near-death experiences is relatively new. We haven't been talking about it for even 200 years quite yet, really. And so it started when people started regularly falling from heights great enough to have time to contemplate their lives. So fairly recent history. And so when we started reviving people from clinical deaths, then we started getting a lot more people giving reports on their near-death experiences, experiencing the sorts o

Australia's international airports seized nearly 400,000 items from travelers last year, including live toads, slugs, birds' nests, and holy water from the Ganges River. In light of this, Renuka presents a feature on what you can and can't bring into Australia. - தடைசெய்யப்பட்ட மற்றும் ஆஸ்திரேலியாவின் சுற்றுச்சூழலுக்கு ஆபத்தான கிட்டத்தட்ட 4 லட்சம் பொருட்கள் கடந்த ஆண்டு ஆஸ்திரேலிய விமான நிலையங்களில் வைத்து கைப்பற்றப்பட்டுள்ளன. இதுகுறித்த செய்தியின் பின்னணியை எடுத்துவருகிறார் றேனுகா துரைசிங்கம்.

Madison Margolin is a journalist covering psychedelics and spirituality. She is the author of Exile & Ecstasy: Growing Up with Ram Dass & Coming of Age in the Jewish Psychedelic Underground. Also the host of the Be Here Now Network's Set & Setting Podcast, as well as the co-founder of both DoubleBlind Magazine and the Jewish Psychedelic Summit, she has written for publications like Rolling Stone, Playboy, VICE, High Times, Lucid News, and Jewish publishing house and production studio Ayin Press, where she works as an editor curating psychedelic stories and interviews. With a master's from Columbia Journalism School and a bachelor's in rhetoric and linguistics from UC Berkeley, Madison has traveled everywhere from pot farms in the Emerald Triangle to the shores of the Ganges River and all over Israel|Palestine exploring the role of entheogens in religion, health, and conflict resolution. With a decade's worth of experience covering psychedelics, cannabis, and religion/spirituality, Madison's work has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, KCRW, and other outlets. She offers classes, workshops, and consulting on the topic(s) of Judaism and psychedelics, and has presented at conferences like SXSW, Horizons: Perspectives in Psychedelics, the Association of Alternative News Media, and more. Check out her website or follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.https://www.madisonmargolin.com 

"The community of corpse burners or Doms take pride in their ability to give moksh but it's also a way of justifying their place in a society that otherwise shuns them, humiliates them and treats them as untouchables. They believe they have religious capital. But at the end of the day, there are no privileged caste people who want to do this job. That's why the Doms are continuing to do this job and that's why they are not able to break through the caste barrier" - Radhika Iyengar, author, Fire on the Ganges talks to Manjula Narayan about her book that documents the customs, harrowing work and lives of the keepers of the sacred fire, the Doms of Varanasi

As we continue our advent series on the past, present and future coming of Jesus, the NOW team of Suzie Lind, Kevin Dixon, Mike Erre and Tim Timmons reflect on God with us in the middle of our current darkness. Plus: Kevin goes Gran Torino and yells at the railroad workers to get off his lawn. Producer Edwin Rivera III gives the whole team a mommy boost, but it just tastes like grass clippings to Mike. Suzie shares an unfortunate side effect of the boost beets that has Tim seeing red.  Also: Stay tuned after the credits to learn all the tributaries of the Ganges River. 0:00 Introduction and assorted inanities  15:27 Actual content begins 38:15 Postcredit banter --- Got a question or a comment for the JourneyNOW team? Join the conversation by texting us at (615) 861-9503. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/journeychurch/support

From 9-5 Job to Real Estate MILLIONAIRE After a Near-Death Experience

Walking a spiritual path is as simple as recognizing you are more than the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of your life. When you commit to transcend your attachment to the limited and fleeting moments of pain and pleasure, you remember the deep abiding peace and joy that is your true nature. Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati joins Paul Scheele in this episode of the MINDTRX podcast. Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati is a renowned spiritual leader and motivational speaker. Originally from Los Angeles and a PhD graduate of Stanford University, Sadhvi has lived on the banks of the sacred Ganges River in the lap of the Himalayas for more than 25 years. Her best-selling memoir, “Hollywood to the Himalayas,” recounts her journey of healing and transformation. Today from one of the largest ashrams in India, Sadhvi teaches meditation, provides spiritual counseling, and oversees a myriad of charitable and humanitarian activities. She travels far and wide and shares the stage with world leaders and spiritual luminaries alike. Sadhvi created the “Pathway to Freedom” program with Learning Strategies. Learn more and connect with Sadhvi at www.SadhviJi.org, www.Youtube.com/@Sadhviji, www.Facebook.com/SadhviBhagawatiSaraswati, and the Drops of Nectar For Joyful Living: The Parmarth Niketan Podcast. Paul Scheele, PhD, is an acclaimed innovator within the fields of neuro-linguistic programming, whole mind learning, preconscious processing, and accelerated learning. As co-founder of Learning Strategies, he has designed and developed over one hundred programs to stimulate personal and professional success, including the Paraliminals on the MINDTRX app. Others include “PhotoReading at 25,000 words a minute,” “Genius Code,” “Abundance for Life,” and “Future Mapping.” Paul guides people to meet critical challenges in their own lives as well as the world. And he helps them achieve extraordinary results in their relationships, work, finances, health, and spiritual well-being. He is the author of “PhotoReading,” “Natural Brilliance,” and “Drop Into Genius.” Learn more about Paul at www.LearningStrategies.com, www.MINDTRX.com, www.YouTube.com/LearningStrategies, and www.Facebook.com/LearningStrategies. To comment or ask a question about this episode please go to our channel on YouTube at https://youtu.be/9K4723qaOXc.

“When I first decided to do these pilgrimages, I told myself I'm doing this as an investigative reporter. I'm doing it as an observer, and as an outsider … and in the end, that isn't what happened.” Rosemary Mahoney, author The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground When Rosemary Mahoney got off the ferry at the tiny island of Tinos, in Greece, she witnessed something extraordinary. Pilgrims dressed in black exited the boat and immediately flung themselves to the ground, crawling on hands and knees to worship at a shrine at the top of a nearby hill.  Watching these men and women rolling in the dirt, sweating beneath a scorching sun, she asked herself a simple question. Every human culture that has ever existed has had some concept of the divine, however you define that. She wanted to understand why. Her search for an answer began a remarkable journey to undertake six of the world's most prominent religious pilgrimages. Her journey would take her from the Way of St James, trekking hundreds of miles across the Pyrenees of southern France and Spain, to the burning ghats of Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges River, in India, and beyond. This isn't a story about religion, or faith. It is an investigation into one of the most fundamental, but little understood, aspects of humanity. It is a quest to discover the roots of belief itself. And to find it, she will have to travel to six countries, walk hundreds of miles, and stare death in the face.  Insightful, evocative, and inspiring. Rosemary's story is an adventure into the heart of what it means to be human. FIND ROSEMARY Get a copy of Rosemary's book The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground, online or from your local bookstore. Find out more about her work at rosemarymahoney.net. Facebook: @RosemaryMahoneyWriter SOCIAL Share the show with your friends! Subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening, follow @armchairexplorerpodcast on Instagram and Facebook, check out Armchair Explorer's website, and learn more about APT Podcast Studios on their website. This show was produced by Armchair Productions. Jenny Allison and Aaron Millar wrote and produced it; Charles Tyrie did the audio editing and sound design. Theme music by the artist Sweet Chap. Find our other shows: armchair-productions.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Adam and Budi discuss their seventh choice for the Theatre of Others Book Club, You Are That by GangajiGangaji, born Toni Roberson, grew up in Mississippi. Like many of her contemporaries, she searched for fulfillment through relationships, careers, motherhood, subculture experiences, political activism, and spiritual practice. While she had never planned to go to India, it was on the banks of the Ganges River that her search ended. In 1990, Gangaji met her teacher, Sri H.W.L. Poonja, known as Papaji. Papaji gave Toni the name Gangaji and asked that she bring his teaching to the West. He said, “The Ganga now will flow in the West.”Today, as a teacher and author, Gangaji speaks to people from all walks of life inviting them to fully recognize the absolute freedom and unchanging peace that is the truth of one's being.She is the author of The Diamond in Your Pocket: Discovering Your True Radiance, Freedom and Resolve: The Living Edge of Surrender, Hidden Treasure: Uncovering the Truth in Your Life Story, and You are THAT. She and her husband Eli Jaxon-Bear live in Ashland, OR.Support the showIf you enjoyed this week´s podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. To submit a question: Voice- http://www.speakpipe.com/theatreofothers Email- podcast@theatreofothers.com Support the Theatre of Others - Check out our Merch!Show Credits Co-Hosts: Adam Marple & Budi MillerProducer: Jack BurmeisterMusic: https://www.purple-planet.comAdditional compositions by @jack_burmeister

So how did I end up on viral Buzzfeed article of The 23 Most Awkwardly Painful Things That Happened In 2015?  Well on this episode I am covering that, along with my best three travel stories as I have been traveling as a digital nomad.  We are covering how I hit a bucket list experience in Cappadocia Turkey, how I became a viral sensation during my trip to India, and how I dealt with heartbreak in Guatemala. Travel isn't always perfect, but it is always a good story and one I would love to share with you today! If you want to hear more of my travel stories, let me know! Message me @christabellatravels on Instagram and let me know which of these stories were your favorite. FREE Digital Nomad Masterclasshttps://www.digitalnomadlifeacademy.com/masterclassJoin me for a monthly live event: https://www.digitalnomadlifeacademy.com/nomadpotentialEnroll in the Digital Nomad Life Academy:https://www.digitalnomadlifeacademy.com/dnlaApply  for my VIP coaching program:(5-month intensive):https://www.digitalnomadlifeacademy.com/coachingFollow me on Tiktok:https://www.tiktok.com/@christabellatravelsMessage me Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/digitalnomadlifeacademyhttps://www.instagram.com/christabellatravels/

May 7, 2021 #Yogananda #YogodaSatsangaSociety #SRF Swami Chidananda Giri, president and spiritual head of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship, delivers an uplifting talk on the Divine Mother aspect of God while visiting India for the centenary celebrations for YSS in 2017. This was Swami Chidanandaji's first visit to Paramahansa Yogananda's beloved motherland after becoming president of YSS/SRF. In this inspired talk, filmed at the YSS Math in Dakshineswar (Kolkata) along the banks of the sacred Ganges River, Swami Chidanandaji illuminates the concept of the Divine Mother as taught by Paramahansa Yogananda. Presenting stories from Yoganandaji's “Autobiography of a Yogi,” sharing his own experiences and impressions, and using guided meditation and visualization to help the audience make these truths real for themselves, Swami Chidanandaji illustrates how every devotee can create a personal and profound relationship with the Divine Mother. To learn more about the YSS Lessons, the home-study course created by Yogananda presenting his personal instruction in the science of meditation and the art of balance spiritual living: https://yssofindia.org/yss-lessons To participate in special online Healing Prayer Sessions conducted by YSS sannyasis: https://yssofindia.org/event/special-... To participate in an online group meditation through the YSS Online Dhyana Kendra: https://yssofindia.org/online-meditation To read “Autobiography of a Yogi,” now celebrating its 75th year in print: https://bookstore.yssofindia.org/prod... To view more talks from this series:    • Inspirational Services With Meditation   If you would like to support the spiritual and humanitarian work of YSS, please click on this link: http://www.donateyss.org ***  For the latest content from SRF: https://yogananda.org/   / yoganandasrf  https://www.facebook.com/selfrealizat...https://twitter.com/srfyoganandahttps://www.instagram.com/selfrealiza...https://bookstore.yogananda-srf.org/ ***  About Subtitles/closed captions:  We are happy to provide quality subtitles in several languages. If no captioning is yet available in your language, please check back in a few days. Subtitulado común o para personas con discapacidad auditiva: Nos complace ofrecer subtítulos en español. Si aún no los encuentra disponibles en su idioma, por favor vuelva a verificar en unos días.  Untertitel: Wir freuen uns sehr, Ihnen auch passende deutsche Untertitel bieten zu können. Sollten die Untertitel gerade noch nicht zur Verfügung stehen, bitten wir Sie, einige Tage später nochmals nachzusehen. Sottotitoli: siamo felici di mettere a vostra disposizione sottotitoli in italiano. Nel caso i sottotitoli non risultino ancora disponibili nella vostra lingua, vi invitiamo a ricontrollare tra qualche giorno. Legendas e legendas ocultas: Temos a satisfação de disponibilizar legendas fidedignas em português. Caso as legendas na sua língua não estejam disponíveis, por favor, verifique novamente dentro de alguns dias. #Yogananda#SwamiChidananda#DivineMother#HowToLive#YSS#SRF#YogodaSatsangaSociety#KriyaYoga#BrotherChidananda#Chidananda#DivineMother

In today's episode, why Chileans are stocking up on armored vehicles and guns. The latest on the cat-and-mouse game between Disney and Florida's Governor DeSantis. And journey to the banks of India's Ganges River, where the elderly are choosing to break the cycle of death and rebirth rather than head into a nursing home. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt-out of targeted advertising

Cynthia Hall is the community coordinator for NASA's Transform to Open Science program, where she works with organizations and communities to build diverse scientific collaborations with NASA. She works to make scientific research and processes more inclusive and accessible to everyone. Cynthia talks with us about open science, her influential NASA Academy internship, and backpacking on the job from Zion National Park to the Ganges River. This episode was produced by Zoe Swiss and Shane M Hanlon, and mixed by Collin Warren. Artwork by Karen Romano Young. Interview conducted by Jason Rodriguez.

0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders 0:06:42 A Strongly Worded Letter Skeptics receive all sorts of interesting letters from the public, some complimentary, some not. It seems that many people also believe that skeptical organisations wield much more power or influence than we really do. On today's show, Richard Saunders reads one of the more noteworthy examples of frustration from a corespondent. 0:18:16 You Can Count on Adrienne. With Adrienne Hill The Story of 'Lady Ganga', Michele Frazier Baldwin, daughter of Kendrick and Ruth Frazier. When Michele, a 45 year old Mother of three was diagnosed with late-stage cervical cancer, she took this as a call-to-action. She decided that she would travel to India to paddle board over 700 miles down the Ganges River, spreading awareness about this disease that was going to kill her and breaking a World Record in the process. https://www.ladyganga.world LADY GANGA: NILZA'S STORY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5yMCzx0ctU 0:23:34 Rob Palmer at CSICon 2022 Guest reporter Rob roves around the halls at CSICon 2022 in Las Vagas and bumps into Kyle Polich from the Data Skeptic Podcast, Karl Withakay and JD Sword. 0:38:12 A Dive into a Trove A wander through the decades of digitised newspapers on a search for references to Kendrick Frazier. 1989, Nov 25 - Kenosha News 1976, July 26 - Benton Courier 1995, Aug 28 - Clovis News Also Sydney Skeptics in the Pub Special Guests, 24th Nov. https://www.meetup.com/austskeptics/events/287036082 Australian Skeptics National Convention 2022 Science & Skepticism in a changed world 3 - 4 December, National Library of Australia, Canberra https://skepticon.org.au

Those of you who have been listening to this show for a while, know we are all about unlocking our full potential. And part of superhumanizing is reconnecting with the profound wisdom of ancient healing practices. Today we are going to dive deep into adaptogens, the plants and mushrooms that have been used around the world for thousands of years that can help us regulate our system and adapt and respond to stressors, be they mental or physical. I believe the present time, where so many of us are dealing with stress or chronic or infectious diseases, is the perfect time to learn about and integrate adaptogens into our daily practice. And I have two leading experts on adaptogens joining us today.Tero Isokauppila is a bestselling author and the founder of Four Sigmatic, the eight figure functional foods company that has become synonymous with making health delicious and easy. His roots are in Finland, where he grew up on his family's 13th generation farm and he has a degree in Chemistry, Business and a Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition at Cornell University. Tero is also the author of Healing Mushrooms and Santa Sold Shrooms, a children's book for adults about the magical origins of Santa Claus.Danielle Ryan Broida is a Registered Herbalist of the American Herbalists Guild, Certified Holistic Nutritionist and Head of Education and Innovation at Four Sigmatic. Prior to joining forces with Four Sigmatic, she received her BA in Environmental Studies and Philosophy from Whitman College. Danielle studied Ayurveda in India and became a Certified Yoga Instructor on the banks of the Ganges River. She then worked with a Naturopathic Doctor in Indonesia where she became a Certified Raw Chef and Detox Coach. After several years in Asia, she landed in Boulder, Colorado to formalize her education in holistic medicine, completing her graduate studies at the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism where she presently is the Instructor of Mycology.Danielle has a private practice, Danielle Ryan Wellness, where she works with hundreds of clients across the US, specializing in functional mushroom based treatment for individuals with autoimmune conditions and chronic illnesses.Tero and Danielle co-authored the book Healing Adaptogens: The Definitive Guide to Using Super Herbs and Mushrooms for Your Body's Restoration, Defense, and Performance.In this interview, Danielle and Tero share what an adaptogen is, some of the world's most healing adaptogens and how to use them and how adaptogens found their way from traditional systems of medicine into modern times. If you want to boost your body's ability to perform, defend and restore, this episode is for you!In this episode with Tero and Danielle, you'll discover:-A primer on "what is an adaptogen?"...04:30-Encouraging news on the current state of research on adaptogens...08:45-How indigenous cultures have understood and used mushrooms and adaptogens...13:15-Tero's journey to becoming subject matter expert and entrepreneur in mushrooms and adaptogens...21:00-Danielle shares her own journey to the realm of adaptogens...27:55-Advice for people at the beginning of the adaptogen journey re: body types and overall health...32:08-The categories (and examples) of adaptogens...36:44-How to know if the supplements that say they contain adaptogens, actually contain adaptogens...45:30-Ariane, Tero and Danielle share their daily adaptogen routines...53:10-Are mushrooms an alien life form?...59:09-Tero's and Danielle's best personal practices (that don't have to do with adaptogens)...1:04:00Resources mentioned:BOOKS

Danielle Ryan Broida is a key player in the worldwide mushroom movement. As a Registered Herbalist (RH) of the American Herbalists Guild (AHG), Certified Holistic Nutritionist, Instructor of Mycology, and National Educator of Four Sigmatic, Danielle is teaching the world about the importance of a life on functional mushrooms. Prior to joining forces with Four Sigmatic, she received her BA in Environmental Studies and Philosophy from Whitman College. She then studied Ayurveda in India and became a Certified Yoga Instructor on the banks of the Ganges River. She then worked with a Naturopathic Doctor in Indonesia where she became a Certified Raw Chef and Detox Coach. But it was leading trekking adventures into the backcountry of Thailand where she became particularly fascinated by herbal medicine (while also becoming fluent in Thai).After several years in Asia, she landed in Boulder, Colorado to formalize her education in holistic medicine. Upon completing her graduate studies at the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism (CSCH), she opened her private practice where she worked with hundreds of clients specializing in functional mushroom-based treatment for individuals with autoimmune conditions and chronic illnesses. She was invited to become the Instructor of Mycology at CSCH, where she still teaches. Danielle brings her passion and expertise in herbal medicine, clinical practice, teaching, formulation, and her deep love for fungi to everything she does.This episode will blow your nutritional mind and give you great tips to incorporate adaptogens and fungi to uplevel your life from a cellular level. We also cover different herbs, sleep, the underrated benefits of magnesium and water, and more.   Find Danielle online at danielleryanwellness.com where you can learn more about holistic nutrition, clinical herbalism, and wellness coaching. Follow her on IG at @danielleryanbroida or at @foursigmatic, and check out her new book, Healing Adaptogens! As usual, follow and find us at:CurrentlyUnwell.com@currentlyunwell on IG

First, I am really grateful for all the well-wishes and congratulations we received on the birth of my son. He's doing great, and I'm over the moon. I decided to record a podcast about the experience-- why my wife and I decided to have our first child here last year, as well as our second child this year, and tell you how great the experience was. Naturally, though, we start with a historical perspective. Today's episode begins in ancient India with one of the most famous figures in human history. It turns out that, in addition to being a spiritual icon, he was also an extreme biohacker. We talk about the evolution of medicine, and how healthcare used to be a ‘patient-first', science-driven field. Individual healthcare practitioners today are still that way. Doctors, nurses, and medical researchers have answered a noble calling to help the sick. But the healthcare industry itself is now ruled by insurance companies and political hacks who have managed to increase the cost of care, make it much more bureaucratic, and severely dilute the doctor-patient relationship. I share a story of my step father, who died several weeks ago after being chewed up by a healthcare system that did not seem designed to help him. This is one of the big reasons why we had our children in Mexico; it's a much more liberated healthcare system. In Mexico, we have a very close relationship with the physician, who is unconstrained by bureaucratic policies and idiotic regulations. And if some stupid rule ever does come up? It's Mexico. We ignore it. The births of my children were both fantastic experiences. The hospital was great. The physicians and nurses were great. And the cost? Imagine Nany Pelosi closing her thumb and index finger into a small circle saying, “It costs nothing.” Frankly it's almost embarrassing that the all-in cost of my child's birth was about $1,750, including the ‘Presidential Suite' at one of the best private hospitals in the country. My children are both Mexican citizens (in addition to the four others that they receive from mom and dad). Plus parents AND grandparents are both entitled to permanent residency in Mexico. This proved especially useful for my in-laws; my wife is from Ukraine, so we were able to get the family out of Kiev and relocate them here to Cancun-- because they now have permanent residency. I tell you the whole story in today's episode, which you can listen to here. Open Podcast Transcription [00:00:01.140] Today we're going to go back in time more than 2500 years ago to the mid 500 BC. To the Kingdom of Kashi on the Ganges River in northern India. Now you might not have heard of the Kingdom of Kashi, a lot of people haven't, but it's actually quite historically significant for a couple of reasons that we're going to get into. At the time, in the mid 500s, there was a guy in his mid thirty s, a guy that some of you might know. This name Siddharta Gotama.   [00:00:27.520] And if you don't know his name, you will in a moment. But this is a person who was born into wealth and power and money and status and he renounced it all. As a young man he said, I'm not interested in the money. What I am interested in is spiritual enlightenment. And that might sound a little bit hokey today, but back then that was actually quite a popular social value.   [00:00:49.210] A lot of people said, you know, I want to seek spiritual enlightenment and their culture and their civilization. That was a prized value. And he walked away from all of his worldly possessions and decided that the way he wanted to do that, he was going to hit the road. And he became essentially a wandering beggar. And during that time he experimented with some really extreme conditions.   [00:01:07.920] At the time, in fact, there was a commonly held belief that if you starved yourself that eventually you would achieve spiritual enlightenment. And this seems crazy to us,

First, I am really grateful for all the well-wishes and congratulations we received on the birth of my son. He's doing great, and I'm over the moon. I decided to record a podcast about the experience-- why my wife and I decided to have our first child here last year, as well as our second child this year, and tell you how great the experience was. Naturally, though, we start with a historical perspective. Today's episode begins in ancient India with one of the most famous figures in human history. It turns out that, in addition to being a spiritual icon, he was also an extreme biohacker. We talk about the evolution of medicine, and how healthcare used to be a ‘patient-first', science-driven field. Individual healthcare practitioners today are still that way. Doctors, nurses, and medical researchers have answered a noble calling to help the sick. But the healthcare industry itself is now ruled by insurance companies and political hacks who have managed to increase the cost of care, make it much more bureaucratic, and severely dilute the doctor-patient relationship. I share a story of my step father, who died several weeks ago after being chewed up by a healthcare system that did not seem designed to help him. This is one of the big reasons why we had our children in Mexico; it's a much more liberated healthcare system. In Mexico, we have a very close relationship with the physician, who is unconstrained by bureaucratic policies and idiotic regulations. And if some stupid rule ever does come up? It's Mexico. We ignore it. The births of my children were both fantastic experiences. The hospital was great. The physicians and nurses were great. And the cost? Imagine Nany Pelosi closing her thumb and index finger into a small circle saying, “It costs nothing.” Frankly it's almost embarrassing that the all-in cost of my child's birth was about $1,750, including the ‘Presidential Suite' at one of the best private hospitals in the country. My children are both Mexican citizens (in addition to the four others that they receive from mom and dad). Plus parents AND grandparents are both entitled to permanent residency in Mexico. This proved especially useful for my in-laws; my wife is from Ukraine, so we were able to get the family out of Kiev and relocate them here to Cancun-- because they now have permanent residency. I tell you the whole story in today's episode, which you can listen to here. Open Podcast Transcription [00:00:01.140] Today we're going to go back in time more than 2500 years ago to the mid 500 BC. To the Kingdom of Kashi on the Ganges River in northern India. Now you might not have heard of the Kingdom of Kashi, a lot of people haven't, but it's actually quite historically significant for a couple of reasons that we're going to get into. At the time, in the mid 500s, there was a guy in his mid thirty s, a guy that some of you might know. This name Siddharta Gotama.   [00:00:27.520] And if you don't know his name, you will in a moment. But this is a person who was born into wealth and power and money and status and he renounced it all. As a young man he said, I'm not interested in the money. What I am interested in is spiritual enlightenment. And that might sound a little bit hokey today, but back then that was actually quite a popular social value.   [00:00:49.210] A lot of people said, you know, I want to seek spiritual enlightenment and their culture and their civilization. That was a prized value. And he walked away from all of his worldly possessions and decided that the way he wanted to do that, he was going to hit the road. And he became essentially a wandering beggar. And during that time he experimented with some really extreme conditions.   [00:01:07.920] At the time, in fact, there was a commonly held belief that if you starved yourself that eventually you would achieve spiritual enlightenment. And this seems crazy to us,

Few rivers have a name as iconic as the Ganges River in India. At over 1550 miles (2,500 kms) long, it winds its way from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, passing a population of over 650 million along the way, making it the most populated river basin in the world.But there is more to the Ganges than just a body of water meandering through the landscape.In this episode, Thom brings his beloved Ganges to life. He explains why she plays such a significant role in the spiritual life of Indian citizens and visitors who come from around the world just to bathe in her icy waters. Thom leaves us in no doubt that the Ganges will justifiably play a pivotal role in our upcoming 2023 retreat in Rishikesh.If you'd like to attend the retreat with Thom in Rishikesh India from January 8th to 18th, 2023, please visit Thom's website for more details, https://thomknoles.com/india-retreat/ or follow the link in the show notes.[00:00:45] Mother Ganga[00:03:17] The Goddess Whom Everyone Can See[00:05:25] Taking a Dip in Ganga[00:07:19] An Invitation from Swami Kailashanand Giri[00:09:06] Removing Karma from the Physiology Useful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoles/https://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoles https://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/

If the idea of a Vedic Meditation retreat in the foothills of the Himalayas with Thom Knoles sounds appealing, then this episode is for you.After a two-year hiatus, Thom is returning to Rishikesh and is extending a warm welcome to Vedic Meditators, and aspiring meditators alike, for a 10-day experience like no other.Thom explains why Rishikesh is the first and perfect choice for such a retreat, making it a pilgrimage to the acknowledged home of meditation and yoga. He outlines the daily routine and some of the highlights to look forward to, such as visits to the Ganges River and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's former ashram, and time spent as guests of His Holiness Swami Kailashanand Giri, the Shankaracharya-elect and the Master of our tradition.With luxury accommodations and gourmet food at the famous Divine Hotel, , your stay will be truly memorable.Let Thom whet your appetite with this special bonus episode, then make your way to https://thomknoles.com/india-retreat/ to register.Jai Guru Deva.[00:01:19] Upanishad - Sitting at the Feet[00:02:38] Rishikesh - A Holy Name for a Holy Place[00:04:53] Bringing an End to Ignorance[00:06:25] Ending the Day With Sama Veda[00:07:43] Honored Guests[00:09:05] A Divine Place to Learn Vedic Meditation[00:10:52] You Were in Rishikesh? Useful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoles/https://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoles https://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/