May 28, 2021 • 40 mins
In this inaugural episode of the podcast I attempt to define spirituality, explain the title, and talk about the themes and topics I will be exploring on future episodes, including:
- how authentic spirituality can be the most effective way to make a positive impact on the world,
- the burgeoning Wisdom Revolution,
- spiritual ego & spiritual bypass,
- Vedic astrology,
- plant medicine, and
- the elements of yoga beyond asana, including kriya, pranayama, laya, and jnana yoga.
Look for new episodes about once a month, although I plan to put a few out in quick succession to clear this backlog of content I have.
Philip Goldberg’s wonderful American Veda, which talks about the rise of people identifying as “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR).
Slavoj Žižek's wonderful documentary is The Pervert's Guide to Ideology
Ramana Maharshi's teaching "Who Am I?"
More about the podcast here https://elemental.yoga/podcast
You can sign up for Jayadev's newsletter, and join his online community
Instagram: @kriya.guy
You can also find a video version of this podcast on Jayadev's YouTube channel
Want to talk about how Chad can assist you with your own transformation?
Book a free consultation!
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Finally, you can support the podcast here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chad Woodford (00:00):
Welcome to the first episode of the podcast.
(00:02):
Today is going to be kind ofmeta. I'm going to talk about
what we're going to talk abouton the podcast and future
episodes. And I'll spend a fewminutes talking about who I am.
And just basically what the showis going to be about and the
topics we're going to exploreand all that. So that's today,
I'm going to try to keep itshort, I'm going to predict that
it's going to be 40 minuteslong.
(00:30):
Welcome to spiritual but notridiculous, a podcast that
explores the world ofspirituality, from a grounded
and clear eyed perspective.
I'm directive on your host, andI'm a former computer engineer
(00:51):
and a former lawyer, andfilmmaker. And I've also been
teaching yoga for about adecade, I teach a style of yoga
called elemental yoga. And it'san authentic, holistic, full
spectrum style of yoga that'sdesigned to address the whole
person and take students intothe direct experience of unity
(01:14):
and bliss, which is ultimatelythe goal of yoga. I mean, just
to help us to learn how tocelebrate and have fun, but also
to expand and to liberateourselves. And I've, in my
experience, this more holisticstyle of yoga is the most
effective, and the most funstyle of yoga that I've
encountered. And elemental Yogais not just Asana, but it's
(01:35):
prana. Yama, it's Korea, it'slabor movements, which are kind
of like Tai Chi, it's warriorbreaths and dance. I mean, we
dance. How much fun is that?
Right. So it's also these otherforms of, of traditional yoga,
like Karma Yoga, which is beingof selfless service in the
world, there's bhakti yoga,which is cultivating a sort of
(01:58):
devotional quality to your life.
And there's Guiana yoga, whichis basically wisdom. It's, it's
studying ancient scriptures, orlistening to wisdom talks, or
discussing these things in asangha or community. It's kind
of studying yourself, to refineyour intelligence and expand
(02:22):
your consciousness through thatmodality. So it's not always
just energetic work, but it'salso working with the mind to
develop greater discernment, andwe'll talk about that later. So
that's who I am, in a nutshell,why I'm doing this podcast and
why I teach yoga in the firstplace, is a topic that I think
(02:44):
will slowly unpack over thecourse of the episodes of this
podcast. But I just wanted toexplain a little bit about my
sort of motivation and myintention going into this and
just talk about why I do what Ido. So I teach yoga, because I
believe that yoga and otherspiritual practices that we'll
talk about on the podcast aredesigned to make people more
(03:09):
relevant, more dynamic, and morepowerful, so that they can
become more impactful andinspiring in the world. That's
ultimately why I'm doing it. Andit's, you know, I've arrived
here after many years ofsearching, really, I spent many
years trying to find a way tomake an impact in the world. You
know, once I sort of started toget into yoga, it started to
(03:32):
wake me up a little bit. And Istarted to look around for how I
could be of greatest service tothe world. And so initially, I
was looking into sort of likethe nonprofit sector or
environmental work policy, wherecivil rights work, things like
that, where there is apossibility for great change,
and areas that really draw on myillegal experience and things
(03:56):
like that. I mean, part of myreason for going to law school,
the first place was because ithad the potential for, you know,
making me having having theskills to kind of go into these
areas of impact, right. So Istarted to look around for where
I could be most relevant andwhich areas would would sort of
draw on my skills the most. Butas I, as I looked at the work
(04:18):
that people were doing in theseareas, and how little progress
was being made in a relativesense, I just started to realize
the the hardest part of makingany kind of positive change in
the world is changing people'sminds. Right? So, you know, you
can't come into a situation orit's extremely hard to come into
a situation and have kind of atop down approach where you're
(04:40):
just bringing in sort of evenwell reasoned arguments or
appealing to people's Higher,higher nature, that kind of
thing without really, thosepeople already being awake in
some sense. So, for me, arrivingat yoga as the most important
practice and the Most importantthing for me to share and do in
(05:01):
the world was this process ofkind of realizing that it's
about ultimately, positivechange in the world is about, I
mean, first accepting the waythe world is right now, you
know, if you don't accept theworld, the way it is, then
there's going to be a lot ofstress, and you're going to
create a lot of friction, andyou're gonna sort of approach it
from a place of like, your jobis to fix something, right. And
(05:23):
that's,I think, the wrong approach. But
it's also this idea that there'sgot to be a grassroots sort of
expansion of consciousnessbefore that can be true change.
This is something that is lavageact as modern day pop
philosopher, and, you know,Marxist, who I find very
entertaining. And quite wise, hetalks about this a lot. And one
(05:43):
of his kind of main themes Ifeel is that the reason that
most revolutions fail, or the orat least the revolutions that
have taken place in the past 100years or so, is because you come
in through the use of force andyou you replace abruptly, one
government with another or oneset of institutions with another
(06:04):
set. And you bring in these, youknow, new leaders, these
politicians who are basicallythe same people as they were
before, so everybody from thepoliticians on down in this post
revolution world, are still thesame people basically. And so
the problem there is thatthey're then bringing all this
conditioning all these oldnarratives with them. And that's
(06:26):
sort of muddying the waters. Andso that's ultimately why
revolutions fail is because youneed to change minds first. And
I think, you know, a goodexample of this, for me, at
least is Black Lives Matter,right? This is a long standing
problem we've had in thiscountry in the United States,
where there's been systemicracism for for so long, so for
(06:49):
so long, 100 100 years, or 200years or longer, right. And I
think a lot of people are stilljust waking up to that fact. And
coming around to thatrealization is a real process,
it may require you to, tounravel your own identity to
some extent, which can beextremely frightening for
(07:11):
people, because you maybe havethis identity that's wrapped up
in well, you know, American, andAmerica is a place where there's
equal opportunity, and theAmerican dream is possible for
everybody. And we have, youknow, we have the bill of rights
and equality. And there can't bethere can't be racism, there
(07:32):
can't be that level of racism,you know, on police forces, or
whatever it is. But I think youhave to slowly get there by by
truly unraveling those, thosekinds of narratives about
yourself and the country youlive in, and the world you live
in, to truly see things as theyare. And I think this is a this
is a place where having aspiritual practice, like yoga
(07:55):
can be hugely beneficial andvery powerful, and bringing you
or bringing people to that levelof awareness. And I think it's
not just expanding awareness,but it's also refining your
intellect. It's, it's developinga real discernment that I think
is necessary, especially in thisday and age, because we live in
(08:15):
a time in a sort of a hangoverof the information age, where
there's so much misinformationand so much sort of competing
narratives, that it's almosthard for people to understand,
you know, what can be what'sreal or what's true. And I think
it's easy for people to kind ofthrow up their hands and say,
you know, what, it's tooconfusing, I don't know, or I'll
(08:37):
just kind of believe what Ibelieve and just grip onto it
tightly, you know. And this iswhere you start to, you start to
get conspiracy theories, and,and the problem of fake news and
all that. So, I think, in myexperience, working with these
technologies, these yogatechnologies and plant medicine
and other things, you start todevelop what's truly an
(08:57):
important skill in the world inand that's discernment, you
know, being able to tellreality, from non reality, truth
from fiction. And not thatthere's some absolute truth that
I'm trying to communicate, butit's just that there is an
absolute truth out there. And Ithink there are ways to arrive
there on your own throughputting these practices into
(09:20):
place. And so that's anotherhuge part of why I'm doing this
is because I feel like the morepeople have, you know, raising
their awareness, expanding theirconsciousness, but also
developing this discernment. Ithink the more it's going to be,
the more of these problems weface as humanity may start to
almost resolve themselves insome cases, but at least start
(09:41):
to loosen up and start to becomemore tractable, I guess, you
know, less intractable. So, youknow, it's not to sound naive. I
mean, there's also all thepolicy work and all the other
work that you need to doalongside of this, but I
personally feel so so passionateabout the fact that If we can
liberate people's minds andraise awareness and expand
(10:01):
consciousness, then these otherchallenges that face humanity
will just kind of there'll bethere'll be less daunting, and
maybe they'll they'll kind ofresolve themselves in some
cases. So, of course, Irecognize there's a lot more to
this process, you know, thequestion, one question is, how
do we go from teaching yoga andother practices
(10:24):
to people who are privilegedenough to and have a curiosity
to access it? How do we go fromthat to impacting very large
numbers of people who areinterested in yoga are
interested in and personalevolution and that kind of
thing? So this is a question Iwill also be exploring in future
episodes of the show, because Ido have some thoughts on that,
and, and maybe some answers. Sothat's coming as well. So, you
(10:48):
know, part of the idea here isthat we're approaching all of
this from a very clear eyed,grounded perspective. And I
think within that there is thisimmense possibility of expansive
expansion and entry changethrough that process. So another
area that I think it makes thespiritual practice that makes
(11:10):
yoga so incredibly relevant isthat these are technologies for
helping people to learn how tofeel their feelings, and to be
with difficult feelings, and tosort of process and integrate
difficult feelings. So I thinkanother problem that is facing
humanity today, at a groundlevel, basically is that people
(11:32):
don't know how to feel theirfeelings, they haven't been
given the tools really, for somestrange reason we're not really
raised in this country or anycountry, to, to know how to feel
our feelings. And so what endsup happening is that people go
around with all theseunprocessed emotions. And then
they're sort of projecting thatonto other people, they're
(11:52):
bringing that into situationsand conflict, and then making it
worse and creating moreconflict. And of course, we have
secondary problems likedepression, and suicidal
ideation, and the opioid crisis,and all these things that come
out of just a basic inability tofeel your feelings and to be
(12:12):
sort of with difficult feelings,you know, to not be afraid of
feelings, right. And so for me,and my own personal experience,
yoga and plant medicines,especially have offered such
powerful tools for helping me tofeel my feelings and helping
helping me to let my feelingsflow and then let them go right
and to become more of a wholeintegrated person. Because I
(12:35):
really feel like you cannot be ahealthy adult, until you've
learned how to sit withuncomfortable emotions. Without
numbing or escaping or blamingother people, you know, just
sitting there and just feelingthese feelings, right? It's not
easy, but at the same time, it'snot the hardest thing in the
world once you have the tools.
So feeling your feelings,another hugely important
(12:59):
practice for people and a thingthat can be made easier with
these tools and technologiesthat I'm going to be exploring
in the podcast as a whole. Ithink the third major reason or
sort of major benefit to thesepractices, and the reason that
I'm sharing them and doing thispodcast is that you can say
(13:20):
that, like the ultimate messageof yoga or any other spiritual
practice is that there isliterally nothing to be afraid
of right now. I think we'reliving in an age of fear, I
think fear has really taken ahold of the planet, it to a
large extent. And so I thinkit's so crucial for us to, to
(13:41):
combat that fear, not in acombative way, but to address
the fear. And the, again, thepractice of yoga, especially,
but also plant medicine is so soinstrumental in learning to
first just let go of your ownfears, and to move out of a
(14:02):
place of fear as a motivator anda motivate motivating factor in
your life. But also, to then,once you've done that, to take
fear as almost like a positivesignal. And so then you it's,
you know, it's more of anadvanced practice, but you start
to use fear as a practice, youstart to, to lean into fear in
your life, and to explore it andto play with it even right. And
(14:25):
you maybe identify those thingsin your life that like scare the
hell out of you, and then youintentionally step into them. Of
course, not things that arelike, you know, rational fears
that are dealing with someimmediate physical threat. But
other than that, you know,things that are like dreams you
have that are too scary orthings in your life that you've
always wanted to do, but are tooafraid of, you know, that's the
(14:46):
kind of thing I'm talking about.
And being able to lean into thatfear is, is a real power. And I
think from my own experience,that's been my journey is sort
of letting go of yours in thefirst place, and then moving
intentionally towards fear.
(15:07):
So those are the big ones, youknow, raising awareness, feeling
feelings and, and dealing withfear and using fear as a
spiritual practice are some ofthe main reasons that I'm
teaching yoga but also doingthis podcast because I think
that it's it's such a pregnanttime for us to be sharing these
(15:28):
practices to be learning thesepractices and to be putting
these practices into place inour on a regular basis. So yeah,
so addressing this kind of rootcause this, this, like dense
consciousness state of a lot ofpeople in the world is kind of
the natural fulcrum point for mepersonally, to make a positive
impact on the world. And anotherthing we'll probably explore in
(15:49):
more depth is, it's dangerous tocome into a situation and try to
bring change from the top down,because as outsiders to a
situation, we might come in withall these sorts of notions about
how to solve the problems thatare not relevant, you know, you
may, you may bring your ownconditioning your own cultural
(16:12):
baggage, your own personalbaggage, what have you into the
situation, and then try toimpose change from the top down.
I mean, this is almost like you,you could call this colonialist
approach to, to change, right,you come into a situation
without really being part of thesituation situation, and then
you start to impose all theseideas onto it. And that just
introduces more stress into thesituation and doesn't usually
(16:35):
solve anything, right. Soinstead, you come in, and you
come in with empathy, and youreally integrate with the
community that's facing thechallenge. And then you kind of
move into it from a place oftotal present moment awareness
and infinite adaptability andusing your intuition and these
(16:57):
other other skills that, thatyou develop through spiritual
practice that are not justcoming up everything as if it's
a intellectual puzzle to solve.
So that's something else we'llexplore a lot in future
episodes. But, you know, interms of why I'm doing this,
it's also just the simple factthat for me, I love studying
yoga and other practices, I lovesharing it, teaching it the
(17:20):
entire yoga vedantic traditionfrom India is such a rich set of
practices that have evolvedpartly through the scientific
method, really, you know,through trial and error and and
finding what works, you know,and it's evolved over the course
of maybe 567 1000 years or more,you know, so it's such a deep
(17:42):
tradition that's beencontinuously evolving,
uninterrupted in India for thatentire time. So I just I just
love it. And I think it's, it'ssuch an important thing to share
with with as many people aspossible. So with this podcast,
I intend to bring spiritualityto hopefully a wider audience as
this kind of life changing ethosand not some kind of like fuzzy
(18:04):
fuzzy headed escapism, it's,it's really a way to become a
more present functioning, happymember of society ultimately,
fell in this part with thisquote. So Krishna, in the
Bhagavad Gita, this famous book,Krishna is telling our Juna,
this warrior who's beenstruggling with some, some
(18:26):
despair, some challenges in hislife, and trying to understand
his place in the world. Youknow, Krishna is teaching him
yoga and this book, and Krishnatells Arjuna, as long as
spirituality is pushed to theoutskirts of society, then
society cannot change or evolve.
And so that kind of for me, thatkind of sums up what I'm getting
(18:49):
at here. I think, part of myintention is to help bring
spirituality, a little bit outof the fringes of society and
more into the mainstream. I'mnot going to do that myself. But
I want to be part of thatconversation as I think it
continues to happen in in thiscurrent time.
(19:18):
So what's separate the title?
Why is it called spiritual butnot ridiculous? Well, it's a
it's a play on words, which I'llget into in a second. But But
first of all, it's hopefully itconveys the fact that the the,
the podcast is aboutspirituality, but it's also
coming from a place ofgroundedness and, you know,
clear eyed sort of practicalityto my own background as sort of
(19:41):
atheist and scientist andengineer and lawyer I think
gives me a unique perspective onspirituality because I'm coming
to it from that sort ofgrounded, very practical mindset
right? So I feel like I'm atrusted resource when it comes
(20:01):
to, you know, what is a way topractice that is not going to
result in spiritual ego orspiritual bypass or being
ridiculous, right. So that's thefirst thing is a reference to
spiritual but not religious,which is a phrase that more and
more people in the world areusing to identify their belief
(20:23):
system. So more people, todaythan at any time in history,
identify as spiritual but notreligious. Bill Goldberg talks
about this in his wonderfulbook, American beta, where he
says that people identifying asspiritual but not religious, are
somewhere between 16 and 39% ofthe US population. So it's, it's
(20:48):
a pretty big number of people,and it's growing every day. And
so it's, it's a reference tothat. I'm not saying necessarily
the religion is ridiculous.
We'll get into that in a minute.
But the idea, again, is thatit's just, you know, it's
spiritual. But hey, we have alittle bit of a sense of humor,
we have a little bit of, youknow, self awareness. And it's
(21:08):
not ridiculous. So that's theidea behind the title. Yeah,
it's intended to call attentionto the fact that there are there
are challenges withspirituality, it kind of has
like a bad reputation almosttoday. And I wanted to kind of
address that to today, but infuture episodes, as well, you
know, you've got intellectualsand people in the mainstream who
(21:31):
think that spiritual people arelost or escapist, or irrational
or anti scientific. Sospirituality, for this reason
has a bad rap. And I just wantto kind of address that right up
front. Yeah. So I think though,for us to get into that, it's
necessary for us to talk aboutspirituality and to define it or
(21:52):
try to define it. And to kind ofuse that as a framework here.
And then I'll talk more aboutwhat else I was going to I'm
going to cover in the podcast infuture episodes.
(22:15):
So I think it's important atthis point, to try to define
spirituality, will, in a sense,we'll be defining spirituality
as we go through every episode,and kind of unpacking it slowly,
slowly over time. But for now, Ithink it's important to at least
set up an initial framework forthe topic and to try to define
(22:36):
it in some way. So let me let metake a stab at it. In yoga, you
we understand that we are notour mind, we are not our
emotions, and we are ultimatelynot our body. But if that's
true, then who are we right? Andthat's a question that we we
explore extensively in thepractice of yoga. This is
(22:59):
actually a style of yoga thatwas popularized by Ramana
Maharshi. And in India, in the20th century, is just asking
yourself this questionrepeatedly, who am I? Who am I?
Who am I? And this is a jumpingoff point to talk about how
spirituality is sort of a way toanswer that question, in some
(23:20):
sense. So spirituality to for meis, it's a means for approaching
and relaxing into the mystery oflife. I think there's no
denying, for me at least, thatthere are so many deep mysteries
to life. And, you know, to adoptthis sort of materialistic 20th
(23:40):
century scientific mindset thatsays that, oh, there's no
mystery except for these littlequestions about quantum physics
or whatever. And ultimately, weknow all the answers and we're
so close to, you know, decodingthe DNA sequence or whatever.
And other than that, it's just,you know, the big bang, and the
universe is random and empty andcold and whatever. I don't think
(24:01):
that satisfies most people. Ithink we need a deeper
cosmology, a deeper sort ofworldview, a deeper ethos to
help us to not only feel betterand find meaning in life, but
also to sort of like, becomebetter people. And so,
(24:21):
spirituality, you know, it'sthis, it's this practice, it's
this worldview is this ethosthat helps us to acknowledge
that there is something morethan what we see. And then kind
of finding ways to tap intothat, you know, to finding ways
to access that experientially,the direct experience component
(24:41):
of spirituality is absolutelycrucial, and we'll talk about
that more in the future. But Iwant to be clear, spirituality
to includes and requiresrational thought. It requires
intellectual rigor and even thescientific method. Yoga is a
good example in yoga, the Yogi'sand modern, yogi's and
(25:01):
everybody, you know, it's, it'shaving these practices, having
these thoughts, having thesekinds of pieces of wisdom, what
have you, and then applying themover time practicing them over
time and seeing if they resultin consistent results, if they
result in a consistent truth,you know, that's part of
(25:22):
spirituality, spiritualityincludes, you know, science in a
sense. And, you know,ultimately, I think we are
spiritual beings. And there's areal power in acknowledging that
fact, and working with it andexploring it. Maybe a helpful
way to define spirituality is tocontrast it with religion. And
(25:44):
so, religion, in my opinion, iswhat you get when spirituality
becomes organized,industrialized, governed by an
organization with a centralauthority, you know, that's,
that's religion, right? We seethat with the modern religions
of the world, we see that withCatholicism, we see that with
(26:05):
Mormonism, Judaism, all thesethings, you know, they start to
become codified in a way wherethe original sort of magic of
the thing that was the initialspark, somehow gets lost in all
this ritual and dogma and allthat, right. So through that
process of, of turningspirituality into a religion,
(26:28):
the direct transcendentalexperience of that practice is
stripped away, or just dilutedor lost, you know, and there's
this, this reliance on emptyrituals, you know, I grew up
Catholic, and in my experienceof Catholicism as it's practiced
in the modern world, you know,you go to church, you read from
(26:50):
the Bible, you pray, you singsome songs, and all these things
are just empty, they're emptyrituals, nobody is getting the
direct experience oftranscendence from these things,
at least that I have seen,nobody I've talked to, you know,
maybe maybe it's happening incertain sort of spin offs, you
know, or maybe more, and thesewere, you know, kind of
(27:13):
esoteric,Christian sects that are
practicing, you know, speakingin tongues and that kind of
thing. But for the, for the mostpart, I think religion is where
spirituality has been sapped ofall its juice. So that's, that's
one way to think about sort ofthe difference, at least between
spirituality and religion.
(27:34):
Another thing that has motivatedme to make this podcast really
is that a few people recently,who I respect deeply, you have
been highly critical ofspirituality and spiritual
people. And it's really inspiredme to, to speak out more about
it, because I've been noticingwhat happens with people is that
(27:57):
they are hanging out in thesespiritual communities, you know,
in Tolu, or in Bali, orwherever, where there's all
these people who are into yogaand going into the jungle and
doing Ayahuasca or whatever, butdon't seem to be acting in
integrity, or they seem a littlebit like disconnected from
(28:18):
reality, or, you know, they seemto be privileged and just sort
of doing these things withoutbringing it back into the, into
the world, right. And so Ireally sympathize with that.
Because that's, that is a realproblem. But I want to say and
part of what I'm trying to saythis podcast, and and future
episodes, and the whole thing isthat within all that there are
(28:41):
veins of gold, there's there'sveins of truth. And spirituality
is still the most one of themost important and necessary
things to, to share and to bringto a wider audience, despite all
that, you know, so I thinkwhat's happening there, and this
is a topic for another anotherepisode. But this is what you
might call spiritual ego orspiritual bypass, right? Where
(29:02):
people they encounter yoga,yoga, or plant medicine, it does
give them some experience ofunity or some positive change,
increase happiness, that kind ofthing. And then there's this
sort of desire to go too fast,too quickly, right? So you want
(29:23):
to you want to get to the endgoal, you want to become
enlightened by the end of theyear. And you want to do that by
skipping a bunch of steps,right? And so what you end up
doing in that case withspiritual bypass, is you start
to adopt all these spiritualconcepts, you know, we are all
one or it's all love or whateverit is, as just intellectual
(29:45):
concepts. And you start to sortof developed by an identity
around it right? And that can bedangerous. And that's when I
think people start to seem alittle out of touch is when
they're just doing that and it'sclear to other people that
They've got all these unresolvedissues or a lot of ego or
whatever it is right? It canbecome overly commercialized. I
(30:07):
think another challenge forspirituality in general is that
it's been so heavily co opted bythe corporate America in a lot
of cases. You know, I think thisgoes back to Slovak Jacques, who
points out in his really, reallyentertaining documentary, The
Idiot's Guide to know, ya know,the purpose guide to Videology.
(30:32):
Yeah, I recommend it, it'sreally good, you should check it
out. But, but in there, he saysthat the way that corporate
culture works, and the way thatcapitalism works is that it is
designed almost to co opt everypositive movement and to kind of
like, absorb it into the Borg ofcapitalism, right. So that's
what's been happening withspirituality. And I think this
(30:54):
is also turning people off, youknow, so it's all these things.
And so I want to addressspiritual ego on spiritual
bypass on the podcast, because Ithink these are things that are
there easily, not easily. Butthese are things that can be
addressed. And there are answersto these challenges, right, you
know, you can do the shadowwork, you can have a consistent
(31:16):
spiritual practice, you canreally dedicate yourself to deep
spiritual work. And if you'retruly practicing, then the
spiritual ego and the spiritualbypass naturally falls away.
And so that brings us to maybethe final point I'll make about
(31:37):
spirituality here, which is thatspirituality has to have a set
of practices. So in my opinion,an essential component of
spirituality is the practices,because these are what helps you
to integrate experiences, right?
Without the practices, you cango do Ayahuasca every weekend or
whatever. But then you come backinto your regular life. And, you
(31:59):
know, maybe you're behavingdifferently. But at the same
time, there's this lack ofintegration, where you're not
bringing those experiences andplanting them deeply into the
grooves of your life, right. Andso integration is so important
for any any spiritualexperience. And it's the
practices that hopefully becomea daily practice that are really
what gives you lasting personalchange makes you more of a
(32:23):
master of yourself, and allowsyou to be more impactful in the
world. And so, you know, thesepractices, they give you this
sort of sense of fearlessnessthat we're talking about
earlier, they make you morecompassionate, more empathetic,
they give you a greater capacityfor forgiveness, and they
increase your joy, and they giveyou greater access to your
(32:46):
inherent bliss, nature, right.
So you start to accept yourself,you accept the world, you accept
other people as a starting pointtowards sort of becoming more
present more adaptable, and thenhaving a capacity for to impact
in the world. And like I wassaying earlier, you also
hopefully have a sense of humorabout it all. And, you know,
(33:10):
this capacity to for celebrationand for enjoying life, right? So
it's not like you becomeserious. And this is kind of
more of the yoga perspective.
Yeah, I think there is. Thereare other spiritual practices, I
think, you know, Buddhism is anexample where maybe it's a
little more serious, you know,there's a sort of almost like,
goal of, of liberating allbeings. But with yoga, there's
(33:31):
this sort of little dance thatwe do between liberation and
celebration. So, so those are,you know, that's so spirituality
has. It's a worldview, but it'salso a set of practices. And it
has all these enormous,incredible benefits as well. So
I'll just end this section witha quote from Elizabeth lesser,
(33:53):
the founder of the OmegaInstitute. If you drew a long
line and put modern cynicism atthe start, and beginner's mind,
at the end, you'd have a map forthe contemporary spiritual
pilgrim. Somehow our culture hasevolved to the point where
pessimism has become synonymouswith intelligence, and where an
(34:14):
overload of information ismistaken for knowledge. And so
for me, that quote, kind of sumsup like the theme of this
podcast and the common commonthread through all the things
that I want to talk about on thepodcast. I feel very strongly
that we are entering a kind ofnew age that this quote speaks
(34:37):
to, and it's been happening fora while, but we're really coming
into I think the heart of itnow. So that brings me to some
of the other topics I want tocover on the podcast. So the
first one is this this kind ofwisdom revolution that is
happening right now, and it'svery exciting for me. This is an
idea that was first proposed byPeter Russell in the late 90s, I
(35:00):
think and popularized by peoplelike Daniel Pinchbeck. And this
is the idea that we're just aswe had the Industrial
Revolution, and the informationage, there is this new wave of
deep and widespread changethat's coming in the world and
in humanity, that is sort of thewisdom revolution. And it's this
(35:22):
idea that more and more peopleare interested in spirituality
and other modes of being beyondjust, you know, a nine to five
job or, or living in a box ofsome kind, you know, there's
this, this, this desire forsomething more, something
deeper, some kind of deepermeaning in life, right. And
people are seeking outalternative ways of being and,
(35:46):
and spirituality is a big partof that. And this idea resonates
so deeply with me, especially inthe past year or so. I mean, it
feels like something isprofoundly changing in the
world. And it's clear to me thatmore and more people are
interested in in spiritualpractices of some kind, you
know, whether that's meditation,or ayahuasca, or yoga, or
whatever it is. So it's, this issomething I want to dedicate at
(36:13):
least one entire episode totalking about is this was a
revolution. You know, there's alot to say there. I'll just
leave it at that. But yeah, veryexciting time to be alive.
I also want to explore thepodcast, other elements of yoga
outside of just Asana. So notthe not the postures, I mean,
(36:34):
the postures are important. Butso much has been said, and and,
you know, studied about thepostures, but I want to try to
bring these other elements ofyoga, especially kriya, and
energetic practices, and moretraditional stuff that I've been
studying in India, bring that toa wider audience as well. You
know, I've been doing that withmy teaching, and my online
(36:54):
platform and all that, but, butI want to explore that more in
the podcast, too, and haveguests who are able to able to
speak to that. I'm also a VedicAstrologer. And I want to talk
about astrology on a futureepisode, and in the podcast,
because this is another exampleof a spiritual tradition, in a
sense, that really has a bad rapin, in the West, at least. And I
(37:17):
think there's a lot ofmisunderstanding about what it
is, you know, it's really ascience. And I would like to
sort of make the case in afuture episode for astrology as
a legitimate sort of approach tounderstanding the world and
understanding yourself. And thenplant medicine has been a hugely
instrumental part of my life.
And I want to kind of explorethat talk about that, demystify
(37:41):
that a little bit to even talkabout maybe the the overlap
between working with plantmedicine and yoga, you know,
there's a real symbiosis therethat I've had personal
experience with. And I'm socommitted to exploring and
discussing both paths, you know,the, the indigenous paths from
South America, and the ancientyogic paths from India. So
(38:08):
that's a little bit about myselfa little bit about why I'm doing
this and a little bit aboutspirituality and what this
podcast is going to be about. Soin terms of the structure, there
will be a new episode about oncea month, sometimes more,
sometimes less. I'll do showswhere it's just me talking
sometimes. But sometimes I'llhave interviews with guests.
(38:30):
I've already got a few guestslined up. So I'm excited about
that. And I may even answerquestions. So I encourage you to
shoot me an email, or post acomment on the podcast on
YouTube, or wherever you'relistening to it. And, and yeah,
I'm totally open to having adialogue with this podcast. And
(38:50):
just as a preview of some of theupcoming episodes I already have
planned, there's going to be oneabout astrology, there's going
to be one that sort of a defenseof spirituality, as you can
probably guess. And there'sgoing to be an episode devoted
to leaning into fear as apractice. And then yeah, I have,
I have a few guests lined up totalk about yoga and other
(39:13):
spiritual practices. So that'sthe podcast. I'm so excited to
start putting these out there.
I've been wanting to do it for awhile and I just, I just love
talking about this stuff. Socheck out the show notes for
some links to some of the thingsI've talked about. You can find
(39:33):
those wherever you get thepodcast, but also at elemental
yoga slash podcast. You canleave a comment on the podcast
app the US or on this onYouTube, if you're getting it
there. And you can alsosubscribe to my newsletter. If
you go to elemental dot yogaslash newsletter. You can find a
link there to just sign up. AndI just want to leave you with
(39:56):
this parting thought that thereis nothing Your curiosity,
awareness and willingness cannottranscend or achieve. Thank you
for joining. Thank you forlistening. I'll see you next
time. Adios
Welcome to the first episode of the podcast.
(00:02):
Today is going to be kind ofmeta. I'm going to talk about
what we're going to talk abouton the podcast and future
episodes. And I'll spend a fewminutes talking about who I am.
And just basically what the showis going to be about and the
topics we're going to exploreand all that. So that's today,
I'm going to try to keep itshort, I'm going to predict that
it's going to be 40 minuteslong.
(00:30):
Welcome to spiritual but notridiculous, a podcast that
explores the world ofspirituality, from a grounded
and clear eyed perspective.
I'm directive on your host, andI'm a former computer engineer
(00:51):
and a former lawyer, andfilmmaker. And I've also been
teaching yoga for about adecade, I teach a style of yoga
called elemental yoga. And it'san authentic, holistic, full
spectrum style of yoga that'sdesigned to address the whole
person and take students intothe direct experience of unity
(01:14):
and bliss, which is ultimatelythe goal of yoga. I mean, just
to help us to learn how tocelebrate and have fun, but also
to expand and to liberateourselves. And I've, in my
experience, this more holisticstyle of yoga is the most
effective, and the most funstyle of yoga that I've
encountered. And elemental Yogais not just Asana, but it's
(01:35):
prana. Yama, it's Korea, it'slabor movements, which are kind
of like Tai Chi, it's warriorbreaths and dance. I mean, we
dance. How much fun is that?
Right. So it's also these otherforms of, of traditional yoga,
like Karma Yoga, which is beingof selfless service in the
world, there's bhakti yoga,which is cultivating a sort of
(01:58):
devotional quality to your life.
And there's Guiana yoga, whichis basically wisdom. It's, it's
studying ancient scriptures, orlistening to wisdom talks, or
discussing these things in asangha or community. It's kind
of studying yourself, to refineyour intelligence and expand
(02:22):
your consciousness through thatmodality. So it's not always
just energetic work, but it'salso working with the mind to
develop greater discernment, andwe'll talk about that later. So
that's who I am, in a nutshell,why I'm doing this podcast and
why I teach yoga in the firstplace, is a topic that I think
(02:44):
will slowly unpack over thecourse of the episodes of this
podcast. But I just wanted toexplain a little bit about my
sort of motivation and myintention going into this and
just talk about why I do what Ido. So I teach yoga, because I
believe that yoga and otherspiritual practices that we'll
talk about on the podcast aredesigned to make people more
(03:09):
relevant, more dynamic, and morepowerful, so that they can
become more impactful andinspiring in the world. That's
ultimately why I'm doing it. Andit's, you know, I've arrived
here after many years ofsearching, really, I spent many
years trying to find a way tomake an impact in the world. You
know, once I sort of started toget into yoga, it started to
(03:32):
wake me up a little bit. And Istarted to look around for how I
could be of greatest service tothe world. And so initially, I
was looking into sort of likethe nonprofit sector or
environmental work policy, wherecivil rights work, things like
that, where there is apossibility for great change,
and areas that really draw on myillegal experience and things
(03:56):
like that. I mean, part of myreason for going to law school,
the first place was because ithad the potential for, you know,
making me having having theskills to kind of go into these
areas of impact, right. So Istarted to look around for where
I could be most relevant andwhich areas would would sort of
draw on my skills the most. Butas I, as I looked at the work
(04:18):
that people were doing in theseareas, and how little progress
was being made in a relativesense, I just started to realize
the the hardest part of makingany kind of positive change in
the world is changing people'sminds. Right? So, you know, you
can't come into a situation orit's extremely hard to come into
a situation and have kind of atop down approach where you're
(04:40):
just bringing in sort of evenwell reasoned arguments or
appealing to people's Higher,higher nature, that kind of
thing without really, thosepeople already being awake in
some sense. So, for me, arrivingat yoga as the most important
practice and the Most importantthing for me to share and do in
(05:01):
the world was this process ofkind of realizing that it's
about ultimately, positivechange in the world is about, I
mean, first accepting the waythe world is right now, you
know, if you don't accept theworld, the way it is, then
there's going to be a lot ofstress, and you're going to
create a lot of friction, andyou're gonna sort of approach it
from a place of like, your jobis to fix something, right. And
(05:23):
that's,I think, the wrong approach. But
it's also this idea that there'sgot to be a grassroots sort of
expansion of consciousnessbefore that can be true change.
This is something that is lavageact as modern day pop
philosopher, and, you know,Marxist, who I find very
entertaining. And quite wise, hetalks about this a lot. And one
(05:43):
of his kind of main themes Ifeel is that the reason that
most revolutions fail, or the orat least the revolutions that
have taken place in the past 100years or so, is because you come
in through the use of force andyou you replace abruptly, one
government with another or oneset of institutions with another
(06:04):
set. And you bring in these, youknow, new leaders, these
politicians who are basicallythe same people as they were
before, so everybody from thepoliticians on down in this post
revolution world, are still thesame people basically. And so
the problem there is thatthey're then bringing all this
conditioning all these oldnarratives with them. And that's
(06:26):
sort of muddying the waters. Andso that's ultimately why
revolutions fail is because youneed to change minds first. And
I think, you know, a goodexample of this, for me, at
least is Black Lives Matter,right? This is a long standing
problem we've had in thiscountry in the United States,
where there's been systemicracism for for so long, so for
(06:49):
so long, 100 100 years, or 200years or longer, right. And I
think a lot of people are stilljust waking up to that fact. And
coming around to thatrealization is a real process,
it may require you to, tounravel your own identity to
some extent, which can beextremely frightening for
(07:11):
people, because you maybe havethis identity that's wrapped up
in well, you know, American, andAmerica is a place where there's
equal opportunity, and theAmerican dream is possible for
everybody. And we have, youknow, we have the bill of rights
and equality. And there can't bethere can't be racism, there
(07:32):
can't be that level of racism,you know, on police forces, or
whatever it is. But I think youhave to slowly get there by by
truly unraveling those, thosekinds of narratives about
yourself and the country youlive in, and the world you live
in, to truly see things as theyare. And I think this is a this
is a place where having aspiritual practice, like yoga
(07:55):
can be hugely beneficial andvery powerful, and bringing you
or bringing people to that levelof awareness. And I think it's
not just expanding awareness,but it's also refining your
intellect. It's, it's developinga real discernment that I think
is necessary, especially in thisday and age, because we live in
(08:15):
a time in a sort of a hangoverof the information age, where
there's so much misinformationand so much sort of competing
narratives, that it's almosthard for people to understand,
you know, what can be what'sreal or what's true. And I think
it's easy for people to kind ofthrow up their hands and say,
you know, what, it's tooconfusing, I don't know, or I'll
(08:37):
just kind of believe what Ibelieve and just grip onto it
tightly, you know. And this iswhere you start to, you start to
get conspiracy theories, and,and the problem of fake news and
all that. So, I think, in myexperience, working with these
technologies, these yogatechnologies and plant medicine
and other things, you start todevelop what's truly an
(08:57):
important skill in the world inand that's discernment, you
know, being able to tellreality, from non reality, truth
from fiction. And not thatthere's some absolute truth that
I'm trying to communicate, butit's just that there is an
absolute truth out there. And Ithink there are ways to arrive
there on your own throughputting these practices into
(09:20):
place. And so that's anotherhuge part of why I'm doing this
is because I feel like the morepeople have, you know, raising
their awareness, expanding theirconsciousness, but also
developing this discernment. Ithink the more it's going to be,
the more of these problems weface as humanity may start to
almost resolve themselves insome cases, but at least start
(09:41):
to loosen up and start to becomemore tractable, I guess, you
know, less intractable. So, youknow, it's not to sound naive. I
mean, there's also all thepolicy work and all the other
work that you need to doalongside of this, but I
personally feel so so passionateabout the fact that If we can
liberate people's minds andraise awareness and expand
(10:01):
consciousness, then these otherchallenges that face humanity
will just kind of there'll bethere'll be less daunting, and
maybe they'll they'll kind ofresolve themselves in some
cases. So, of course, Irecognize there's a lot more to
this process, you know, thequestion, one question is, how
do we go from teaching yoga andother practices
(10:24):
to people who are privilegedenough to and have a curiosity
to access it? How do we go fromthat to impacting very large
numbers of people who areinterested in yoga are
interested in and personalevolution and that kind of
thing? So this is a question Iwill also be exploring in future
episodes of the show, because Ido have some thoughts on that,
and, and maybe some answers. Sothat's coming as well. So, you
(10:48):
know, part of the idea here isthat we're approaching all of
this from a very clear eyed,grounded perspective. And I
think within that there is thisimmense possibility of expansive
expansion and entry changethrough that process. So another
area that I think it makes thespiritual practice that makes
(11:10):
yoga so incredibly relevant isthat these are technologies for
helping people to learn how tofeel their feelings, and to be
with difficult feelings, and tosort of process and integrate
difficult feelings. So I thinkanother problem that is facing
humanity today, at a groundlevel, basically is that people
(11:32):
don't know how to feel theirfeelings, they haven't been
given the tools really, for somestrange reason we're not really
raised in this country or anycountry, to, to know how to feel
our feelings. And so what endsup happening is that people go
around with all theseunprocessed emotions. And then
they're sort of projecting thatonto other people, they're
(11:52):
bringing that into situationsand conflict, and then making it
worse and creating moreconflict. And of course, we have
secondary problems likedepression, and suicidal
ideation, and the opioid crisis,and all these things that come
out of just a basic inability tofeel your feelings and to be
(12:12):
sort of with difficult feelings,you know, to not be afraid of
feelings, right. And so for me,and my own personal experience,
yoga and plant medicines,especially have offered such
powerful tools for helping me tofeel my feelings and helping
helping me to let my feelingsflow and then let them go right
and to become more of a wholeintegrated person. Because I
(12:35):
really feel like you cannot be ahealthy adult, until you've
learned how to sit withuncomfortable emotions. Without
numbing or escaping or blamingother people, you know, just
sitting there and just feelingthese feelings, right? It's not
easy, but at the same time, it'snot the hardest thing in the
world once you have the tools.
So feeling your feelings,another hugely important
(12:59):
practice for people and a thingthat can be made easier with
these tools and technologiesthat I'm going to be exploring
in the podcast as a whole. Ithink the third major reason or
sort of major benefit to thesepractices, and the reason that
I'm sharing them and doing thispodcast is that you can say
(13:20):
that, like the ultimate messageof yoga or any other spiritual
practice is that there isliterally nothing to be afraid
of right now. I think we'reliving in an age of fear, I
think fear has really taken ahold of the planet, it to a
large extent. And so I thinkit's so crucial for us to, to
(13:41):
combat that fear, not in acombative way, but to address
the fear. And the, again, thepractice of yoga, especially,
but also plant medicine is so soinstrumental in learning to
first just let go of your ownfears, and to move out of a
(14:02):
place of fear as a motivator anda motivate motivating factor in
your life. But also, to then,once you've done that, to take
fear as almost like a positivesignal. And so then you it's,
you know, it's more of anadvanced practice, but you start
to use fear as a practice, youstart to, to lean into fear in
your life, and to explore it andto play with it even right. And
(14:25):
you maybe identify those thingsin your life that like scare the
hell out of you, and then youintentionally step into them. Of
course, not things that arelike, you know, rational fears
that are dealing with someimmediate physical threat. But
other than that, you know,things that are like dreams you
have that are too scary orthings in your life that you've
always wanted to do, but are tooafraid of, you know, that's the
(14:46):
kind of thing I'm talking about.
And being able to lean into thatfear is, is a real power. And I
think from my own experience,that's been my journey is sort
of letting go of yours in thefirst place, and then moving
intentionally towards fear.
(15:07):
So those are the big ones, youknow, raising awareness, feeling
feelings and, and dealing withfear and using fear as a
spiritual practice are some ofthe main reasons that I'm
teaching yoga but also doingthis podcast because I think
that it's it's such a pregnanttime for us to be sharing these
(15:28):
practices to be learning thesepractices and to be putting
these practices into place inour on a regular basis. So yeah,
so addressing this kind of rootcause this, this, like dense
consciousness state of a lot ofpeople in the world is kind of
the natural fulcrum point for mepersonally, to make a positive
impact on the world. And anotherthing we'll probably explore in
(15:49):
more depth is, it's dangerous tocome into a situation and try to
bring change from the top down,because as outsiders to a
situation, we might come in withall these sorts of notions about
how to solve the problems thatare not relevant, you know, you
may, you may bring your ownconditioning your own cultural
(16:12):
baggage, your own personalbaggage, what have you into the
situation, and then try toimpose change from the top down.
I mean, this is almost like you,you could call this colonialist
approach to, to change, right,you come into a situation
without really being part of thesituation situation, and then
you start to impose all theseideas onto it. And that just
introduces more stress into thesituation and doesn't usually
(16:35):
solve anything, right. Soinstead, you come in, and you
come in with empathy, and youreally integrate with the
community that's facing thechallenge. And then you kind of
move into it from a place oftotal present moment awareness
and infinite adaptability andusing your intuition and these
(16:57):
other other skills that, thatyou develop through spiritual
practice that are not justcoming up everything as if it's
a intellectual puzzle to solve.
So that's something else we'llexplore a lot in future
episodes. But, you know, interms of why I'm doing this,
it's also just the simple factthat for me, I love studying
yoga and other practices, I lovesharing it, teaching it the
(17:20):
entire yoga vedantic traditionfrom India is such a rich set of
practices that have evolvedpartly through the scientific
method, really, you know,through trial and error and and
finding what works, you know,and it's evolved over the course
of maybe 567 1000 years or more,you know, so it's such a deep
(17:42):
tradition that's beencontinuously evolving,
uninterrupted in India for thatentire time. So I just I just
love it. And I think it's, it'ssuch an important thing to share
with with as many people aspossible. So with this podcast,
I intend to bring spiritualityto hopefully a wider audience as
this kind of life changing ethosand not some kind of like fuzzy
(18:04):
fuzzy headed escapism, it's,it's really a way to become a
more present functioning, happymember of society ultimately,
fell in this part with thisquote. So Krishna, in the
Bhagavad Gita, this famous book,Krishna is telling our Juna,
this warrior who's beenstruggling with some, some
(18:26):
despair, some challenges in hislife, and trying to understand
his place in the world. Youknow, Krishna is teaching him
yoga and this book, and Krishnatells Arjuna, as long as
spirituality is pushed to theoutskirts of society, then
society cannot change or evolve.
And so that kind of for me, thatkind of sums up what I'm getting
(18:49):
at here. I think, part of myintention is to help bring
spirituality, a little bit outof the fringes of society and
more into the mainstream. I'mnot going to do that myself. But
I want to be part of thatconversation as I think it
continues to happen in in thiscurrent time.
(19:18):
So what's separate the title?
Why is it called spiritual butnot ridiculous? Well, it's a
it's a play on words, which I'llget into in a second. But But
first of all, it's hopefully itconveys the fact that the the,
the podcast is aboutspirituality, but it's also
coming from a place ofgroundedness and, you know,
clear eyed sort of practicalityto my own background as sort of
(19:41):
atheist and scientist andengineer and lawyer I think
gives me a unique perspective onspirituality because I'm coming
to it from that sort ofgrounded, very practical mindset
right? So I feel like I'm atrusted resource when it comes
(20:01):
to, you know, what is a way topractice that is not going to
result in spiritual ego orspiritual bypass or being
ridiculous, right. So that's thefirst thing is a reference to
spiritual but not religious,which is a phrase that more and
more people in the world areusing to identify their belief
(20:23):
system. So more people, todaythan at any time in history,
identify as spiritual but notreligious. Bill Goldberg talks
about this in his wonderfulbook, American beta, where he
says that people identifying asspiritual but not religious, are
somewhere between 16 and 39% ofthe US population. So it's, it's
(20:48):
a pretty big number of people,and it's growing every day. And
so it's, it's a reference tothat. I'm not saying necessarily
the religion is ridiculous.
We'll get into that in a minute.
But the idea, again, is thatit's just, you know, it's
spiritual. But hey, we have alittle bit of a sense of humor,
we have a little bit of, youknow, self awareness. And it's
(21:08):
not ridiculous. So that's theidea behind the title. Yeah,
it's intended to call attentionto the fact that there are there
are challenges withspirituality, it kind of has
like a bad reputation almosttoday. And I wanted to kind of
address that to today, but infuture episodes, as well, you
know, you've got intellectualsand people in the mainstream who
(21:31):
think that spiritual people arelost or escapist, or irrational
or anti scientific. Sospirituality, for this reason
has a bad rap. And I just wantto kind of address that right up
front. Yeah. So I think though,for us to get into that, it's
necessary for us to talk aboutspirituality and to define it or
(21:52):
try to define it. And to kind ofuse that as a framework here.
And then I'll talk more aboutwhat else I was going to I'm
going to cover in the podcast infuture episodes.
(22:15):
So I think it's important atthis point, to try to define
spirituality, will, in a sense,we'll be defining spirituality
as we go through every episode,and kind of unpacking it slowly,
slowly over time. But for now, Ithink it's important to at least
set up an initial framework forthe topic and to try to define
(22:36):
it in some way. So let me let metake a stab at it. In yoga, you
we understand that we are notour mind, we are not our
emotions, and we are ultimatelynot our body. But if that's
true, then who are we right? Andthat's a question that we we
explore extensively in thepractice of yoga. This is
(22:59):
actually a style of yoga thatwas popularized by Ramana
Maharshi. And in India, in the20th century, is just asking
yourself this questionrepeatedly, who am I? Who am I?
Who am I? And this is a jumpingoff point to talk about how
spirituality is sort of a way toanswer that question, in some
(23:20):
sense. So spirituality to for meis, it's a means for approaching
and relaxing into the mystery oflife. I think there's no
denying, for me at least, thatthere are so many deep mysteries
to life. And, you know, to adoptthis sort of materialistic 20th
(23:40):
century scientific mindset thatsays that, oh, there's no
mystery except for these littlequestions about quantum physics
or whatever. And ultimately, weknow all the answers and we're
so close to, you know, decodingthe DNA sequence or whatever.
And other than that, it's just,you know, the big bang, and the
universe is random and empty andcold and whatever. I don't think
(24:01):
that satisfies most people. Ithink we need a deeper
cosmology, a deeper sort ofworldview, a deeper ethos to
help us to not only feel betterand find meaning in life, but
also to sort of like, becomebetter people. And so,
(24:21):
spirituality, you know, it'sthis, it's this practice, it's
this worldview is this ethosthat helps us to acknowledge
that there is something morethan what we see. And then kind
of finding ways to tap intothat, you know, to finding ways
to access that experientially,the direct experience component
(24:41):
of spirituality is absolutelycrucial, and we'll talk about
that more in the future. But Iwant to be clear, spirituality
to includes and requiresrational thought. It requires
intellectual rigor and even thescientific method. Yoga is a
good example in yoga, the Yogi'sand modern, yogi's and
(25:01):
everybody, you know, it's, it'shaving these practices, having
these thoughts, having thesekinds of pieces of wisdom, what
have you, and then applying themover time practicing them over
time and seeing if they resultin consistent results, if they
result in a consistent truth,you know, that's part of
(25:22):
spirituality, spiritualityincludes, you know, science in a
sense. And, you know,ultimately, I think we are
spiritual beings. And there's areal power in acknowledging that
fact, and working with it andexploring it. Maybe a helpful
way to define spirituality is tocontrast it with religion. And
(25:44):
so, religion, in my opinion, iswhat you get when spirituality
becomes organized,industrialized, governed by an
organization with a centralauthority, you know, that's,
that's religion, right? We seethat with the modern religions
of the world, we see that withCatholicism, we see that with
(26:05):
Mormonism, Judaism, all thesethings, you know, they start to
become codified in a way wherethe original sort of magic of
the thing that was the initialspark, somehow gets lost in all
this ritual and dogma and allthat, right. So through that
process of, of turningspirituality into a religion,
(26:28):
the direct transcendentalexperience of that practice is
stripped away, or just dilutedor lost, you know, and there's
this, this reliance on emptyrituals, you know, I grew up
Catholic, and in my experienceof Catholicism as it's practiced
in the modern world, you know,you go to church, you read from
(26:50):
the Bible, you pray, you singsome songs, and all these things
are just empty, they're emptyrituals, nobody is getting the
direct experience oftranscendence from these things,
at least that I have seen,nobody I've talked to, you know,
maybe maybe it's happening incertain sort of spin offs, you
know, or maybe more, and thesewere, you know, kind of
(27:13):
esoteric,Christian sects that are
practicing, you know, speakingin tongues and that kind of
thing. But for the, for the mostpart, I think religion is where
spirituality has been sapped ofall its juice. So that's, that's
one way to think about sort ofthe difference, at least between
spirituality and religion.
(27:34):
Another thing that has motivatedme to make this podcast really
is that a few people recently,who I respect deeply, you have
been highly critical ofspirituality and spiritual
people. And it's really inspiredme to, to speak out more about
it, because I've been noticingwhat happens with people is that
(27:57):
they are hanging out in thesespiritual communities, you know,
in Tolu, or in Bali, orwherever, where there's all
these people who are into yogaand going into the jungle and
doing Ayahuasca or whatever, butdon't seem to be acting in
integrity, or they seem a littlebit like disconnected from
(28:18):
reality, or, you know, they seemto be privileged and just sort
of doing these things withoutbringing it back into the, into
the world, right. And so Ireally sympathize with that.
Because that's, that is a realproblem. But I want to say and
part of what I'm trying to saythis podcast, and and future
episodes, and the whole thing isthat within all that there are
(28:41):
veins of gold, there's there'sveins of truth. And spirituality
is still the most one of themost important and necessary
things to, to share and to bringto a wider audience, despite all
that, you know, so I thinkwhat's happening there, and this
is a topic for another anotherepisode. But this is what you
might call spiritual ego orspiritual bypass, right? Where
(29:02):
people they encounter yoga,yoga, or plant medicine, it does
give them some experience ofunity or some positive change,
increase happiness, that kind ofthing. And then there's this
sort of desire to go too fast,too quickly, right? So you want
(29:23):
to you want to get to the endgoal, you want to become
enlightened by the end of theyear. And you want to do that by
skipping a bunch of steps,right? And so what you end up
doing in that case withspiritual bypass, is you start
to adopt all these spiritualconcepts, you know, we are all
one or it's all love or whateverit is, as just intellectual
(29:45):
concepts. And you start to sortof developed by an identity
around it right? And that can bedangerous. And that's when I
think people start to seem alittle out of touch is when
they're just doing that and it'sclear to other people that
They've got all these unresolvedissues or a lot of ego or
whatever it is right? It canbecome overly commercialized. I
(30:07):
think another challenge forspirituality in general is that
it's been so heavily co opted bythe corporate America in a lot
of cases. You know, I think thisgoes back to Slovak Jacques, who
points out in his really, reallyentertaining documentary, The
Idiot's Guide to know, ya know,the purpose guide to Videology.
(30:32):
Yeah, I recommend it, it'sreally good, you should check it
out. But, but in there, he saysthat the way that corporate
culture works, and the way thatcapitalism works is that it is
designed almost to co opt everypositive movement and to kind of
like, absorb it into the Borg ofcapitalism, right. So that's
what's been happening withspirituality. And I think this
(30:54):
is also turning people off, youknow, so it's all these things.
And so I want to addressspiritual ego on spiritual
bypass on the podcast, because Ithink these are things that are
there easily, not easily. Butthese are things that can be
addressed. And there are answersto these challenges, right, you
know, you can do the shadowwork, you can have a consistent
(31:16):
spiritual practice, you canreally dedicate yourself to deep
spiritual work. And if you'retruly practicing, then the
spiritual ego and the spiritualbypass naturally falls away.
And so that brings us to maybethe final point I'll make about
(31:37):
spirituality here, which is thatspirituality has to have a set
of practices. So in my opinion,an essential component of
spirituality is the practices,because these are what helps you
to integrate experiences, right?
Without the practices, you cango do Ayahuasca every weekend or
whatever. But then you come backinto your regular life. And, you
(31:59):
know, maybe you're behavingdifferently. But at the same
time, there's this lack ofintegration, where you're not
bringing those experiences andplanting them deeply into the
grooves of your life, right. Andso integration is so important
for any any spiritualexperience. And it's the
practices that hopefully becomea daily practice that are really
what gives you lasting personalchange makes you more of a
(32:23):
master of yourself, and allowsyou to be more impactful in the
world. And so, you know, thesepractices, they give you this
sort of sense of fearlessnessthat we're talking about
earlier, they make you morecompassionate, more empathetic,
they give you a greater capacityfor forgiveness, and they
increase your joy, and they giveyou greater access to your
(32:46):
inherent bliss, nature, right.
So you start to accept yourself,you accept the world, you accept
other people as a starting pointtowards sort of becoming more
present more adaptable, and thenhaving a capacity for to impact
in the world. And like I wassaying earlier, you also
hopefully have a sense of humorabout it all. And, you know,
(33:10):
this capacity to for celebrationand for enjoying life, right? So
it's not like you becomeserious. And this is kind of
more of the yoga perspective.
Yeah, I think there is. Thereare other spiritual practices, I
think, you know, Buddhism is anexample where maybe it's a
little more serious, you know,there's a sort of almost like,
goal of, of liberating allbeings. But with yoga, there's
(33:31):
this sort of little dance thatwe do between liberation and
celebration. So, so those are,you know, that's so spirituality
has. It's a worldview, but it'salso a set of practices. And it
has all these enormous,incredible benefits as well. So
I'll just end this section witha quote from Elizabeth lesser,
(33:53):
the founder of the OmegaInstitute. If you drew a long
line and put modern cynicism atthe start, and beginner's mind,
at the end, you'd have a map forthe contemporary spiritual
pilgrim. Somehow our culture hasevolved to the point where
pessimism has become synonymouswith intelligence, and where an
(34:14):
overload of information ismistaken for knowledge. And so
for me, that quote, kind of sumsup like the theme of this
podcast and the common commonthread through all the things
that I want to talk about on thepodcast. I feel very strongly
that we are entering a kind ofnew age that this quote speaks
(34:37):
to, and it's been happening fora while, but we're really coming
into I think the heart of itnow. So that brings me to some
of the other topics I want tocover on the podcast. So the
first one is this this kind ofwisdom revolution that is
happening right now, and it'svery exciting for me. This is an
idea that was first proposed byPeter Russell in the late 90s, I
(35:00):
think and popularized by peoplelike Daniel Pinchbeck. And this
is the idea that we're just aswe had the Industrial
Revolution, and the informationage, there is this new wave of
deep and widespread changethat's coming in the world and
in humanity, that is sort of thewisdom revolution. And it's this
(35:22):
idea that more and more peopleare interested in spirituality
and other modes of being beyondjust, you know, a nine to five
job or, or living in a box ofsome kind, you know, there's
this, this, this desire forsomething more, something
deeper, some kind of deepermeaning in life, right. And
people are seeking outalternative ways of being and,
(35:46):
and spirituality is a big partof that. And this idea resonates
so deeply with me, especially inthe past year or so. I mean, it
feels like something isprofoundly changing in the
world. And it's clear to me thatmore and more people are
interested in in spiritualpractices of some kind, you
know, whether that's meditation,or ayahuasca, or yoga, or
whatever it is. So it's, this issomething I want to dedicate at
(36:13):
least one entire episode totalking about is this was a
revolution. You know, there's alot to say there. I'll just
leave it at that. But yeah, veryexciting time to be alive.
I also want to explore thepodcast, other elements of yoga
outside of just Asana. So notthe not the postures, I mean,
(36:34):
the postures are important. Butso much has been said, and and,
you know, studied about thepostures, but I want to try to
bring these other elements ofyoga, especially kriya, and
energetic practices, and moretraditional stuff that I've been
studying in India, bring that toa wider audience as well. You
know, I've been doing that withmy teaching, and my online
(36:54):
platform and all that, but, butI want to explore that more in
the podcast, too, and haveguests who are able to able to
speak to that. I'm also a VedicAstrologer. And I want to talk
about astrology on a futureepisode, and in the podcast,
because this is another exampleof a spiritual tradition, in a
sense, that really has a bad rapin, in the West, at least. And I
(37:17):
think there's a lot ofmisunderstanding about what it
is, you know, it's really ascience. And I would like to
sort of make the case in afuture episode for astrology as
a legitimate sort of approach tounderstanding the world and
understanding yourself. And thenplant medicine has been a hugely
instrumental part of my life.
And I want to kind of explorethat talk about that, demystify
(37:41):
that a little bit to even talkabout maybe the the overlap
between working with plantmedicine and yoga, you know,
there's a real symbiosis therethat I've had personal
experience with. And I'm socommitted to exploring and
discussing both paths, you know,the, the indigenous paths from
South America, and the ancientyogic paths from India. So
(38:08):
that's a little bit about myselfa little bit about why I'm doing
this and a little bit aboutspirituality and what this
podcast is going to be about. Soin terms of the structure, there
will be a new episode about oncea month, sometimes more,
sometimes less. I'll do showswhere it's just me talking
sometimes. But sometimes I'llhave interviews with guests.
(38:30):
I've already got a few guestslined up. So I'm excited about
that. And I may even answerquestions. So I encourage you to
shoot me an email, or post acomment on the podcast on
YouTube, or wherever you'relistening to it. And, and yeah,
I'm totally open to having adialogue with this podcast. And
(38:50):
just as a preview of some of theupcoming episodes I already have
planned, there's going to be oneabout astrology, there's going
to be one that sort of a defenseof spirituality, as you can
probably guess. And there'sgoing to be an episode devoted
to leaning into fear as apractice. And then yeah, I have,
I have a few guests lined up totalk about yoga and other
(39:13):
spiritual practices. So that'sthe podcast. I'm so excited to
start putting these out there.
I've been wanting to do it for awhile and I just, I just love
talking about this stuff. Socheck out the show notes for
some links to some of the thingsI've talked about. You can find
(39:33):
those wherever you get thepodcast, but also at elemental
yoga slash podcast. You canleave a comment on the podcast
app the US or on this onYouTube, if you're getting it
there. And you can alsosubscribe to my newsletter. If
you go to elemental dot yogaslash newsletter. You can find a
link there to just sign up. AndI just want to leave you with
(39:56):
this parting thought that thereis nothing Your curiosity,
awareness and willingness cannottranscend or achieve. Thank you
for joining. Thank you forlistening. I'll see you next
time. Adios
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