Western Baul Podcast Series

My Last Bully Is Me (Rick Lewis)

We are a particular kind of machine that protects itself at all costs. There’s no chance of escaping the machine; it’s what we have to work with. The only way to really work with the machine is to completely leave it alone and stop trying to change it. Liberation isn’t liberation into anything else—it’s liberation from identification. We might not remember a lot of the bullying we experienced, which may have left us with shame. We take over the bullying process from imprints we get as children and can spend a huge amount of time and energy trying to prove that we deserve to exist. We bring this with us to the spiritual path. Feeling the entire construct of self-bullying in the body can show us that we are doing this to ourselves. There is no “me” or ego sense other than the pattern of tension we perpetuate in our bodies. To fully get in touch with this can dissolve and release it. The inner bully goes easy on us when there should be more discipline and is hard on us when it should lighten up. To be a friend to ourselves is to challenge the ways we keep ourselves comfortable and to comfort ourselves when we habitually beat ourselves up. We can draw on microdoses of Truth to interrupt the process of self-bullying and bring ourselves back to the reference point that there is literally no “me.” The habit of fixating on the idea that I must be something other than exactly what is present is self-bullying. The idea that “no self” is something unknown, far away from us, some goal or achievement, is fundamentally wrong. We all have a point of reference for it. When we give ourselves the space to line up authentically with exactly what is true for us, we create an opening for others to set down the self-bullying process. Rick is a national speaker and author of 7 Rules You Were Born to Break, The Perfection of Nothing, You Have the Right to Remain Silent, and other books.

”Honey in the Heart: The Rasa of Enjoyment, Delight and Celebration on the Path” (Nachama Greenwald)

The phrase “honey in the heart” is taken from a book by Martin Prechtel. The word “rasa” means taste or essence in Sanskrit. The heart is an alchemical vessel, capable of transmitting, radiating, and metabolizing. The elixir distilled from this process is like honey. When we meet reality as-it-is with an open and undefended heart, we celebrate all aspects of our lives. We become one with all of life in the moment, and our hearts break from sorrow and from joy. Creation is an outpouring of divine love. In celebrating and finding delight in our lives, we align with the heart of creation. The fullness of joy is our birthright. Maybe we do not open to joy, but joy opens us. Joy arises when we surrender to the full spectrum of life, when we drop our resistance and are willing to feel everything without trying to fix, escape, or transcend life as-it-is to become some perfect version of ourselves. Celebration is when we meet reality with full presence. We can cultivate presence and pause, slow down, and notice when we experience this through grace. We get bigger so we can hold the inconceivable by stretching beyond habitual reference points and perceived limitations. We come home through the medium of the natural world. Ways that people experience coming home are shared. Grieving is medicine for our attachments. When grieving is complete, what is left is love not colored by attachment. The path is an investment in loss—hopefully of our illusions. Reality is transmissive, and the transmissions are about love and are always available to us. We die a little in order to love more. The heart will open at death to the degree it has opened in life. Nachama is a physical therapist, editor, and musician who for seventeen years was a member of the Shri blues band which performed Western Baul music.

Deep Dharmic Doo-Doo: Resistance is Futile… But So Also Is Acceptance (Peter Cohen)

The term “dharma” has been used generically in the West to refer to any real teaching of contemplative spirituality. “Doo-doo” has to do with being stuck in our spiritual endeavors. A quote attributed to St. John of the Cross is, “In order to come upon that which you know not, you must go by a way in which you know not.” There are many things to benefit from in the domain of the known, but the spiritual path is about the domain of the unknown. The “now” that is spoken about by Realizers is outside of time, outside of the known. Peace comes and goes in the known, but there is a Peace that surpasses understanding. Enlightenment is a questionable term; it is not anything that we might imagine happens to an individual in the domain of the known. Anything we do to get there can take us away from it. The personality does not disappear when the condition of no-self is realized—it is just seen through. The known includes anything we’ve read, been conditioned into, or been told. It is imprisoning to embrace any belief or handed-down structure at the expense of finding our own way through the forest of the unknown. A realized person, awakened to no-self, is simply himself or herself, freed of all handed-down beliefs. Consciousness accepts by its nature and so trying to accept may only muddy the water. Recognizing our helplessness, that we are in doo-doo, can be a good sign. No practice can bring about total surrender, yet many sages have recommended them. We can hold any teaching, teacher, or practice in high regard but stand on our own two feet. The talk includes discussion about whether a Guru is needed in this day and age versus the direct path. Peter Cohen was the drummer for the Western Baul rock band, Liars, Gods, and Beggars from 1988 to 1994. He has followed the nondual path and rhythm of life in Alaska and Idaho as a nurse and a musician.

Wisdom Teachings of the Ancient World: Celtic Spirituality and Tantra (Mary Angelon Young)

Maha Shivaratri is the annual Hindu celebration of the union of Shiva and Parvati, the symbol of the timeless and the world of time. All the great traditions recognize the meeting point between timelessness and time, heaven and earth. The Celtic cross represents the union of spirit and matter. Another Celtic symbol is the Triskelion, an image of three universal forces flowing into each other. Three forces are also part of other traditions, such as creation, preservation, and destruction in Hinduism. The Celts were animists who had a deep relationship to the divinity in all things. They had a profound love of nature, including trees, and were very aware of the cycles of time. They believed in the transmigration of the imperishable soul, which travels and returns like the cycles of nature. “Awen” means inspiration, which is experienced when in flow with the patterns of the cosmos. The Celts had a longing for the unknown that showed up in wandering. This is also an honored tradition in India based in faith and trust in the universe. Walking can tap us into something very ancient. Longing is connected to our true home, the heart of God. If we can stay with our longing, it will take us into the mystery. Grief is connected to longing and has the power to break us open to surrender to life. All thresholds, “betwixt and between” places, have power. The other world is close at hand at places where the veils are thin between past, present, and future. Four aims of life are considered: dharma, kama, artha, and moksha. We can realize divinity through anything and everything. Angelon is a workshop leader with a background in Jungian psychology, an editor and author of As It Is, Under the Punnai Tree, The Baul Tradition, Caught in the Beloved’s Petticoats, Enlightened Duality (with Lee Lozowick), Krishna’s Heretic Lovers, The Art of Contemplation and other books.

Lies We Tell Ourselves (Karl Krumins)

The talk focuses more on self-deception—not knowing we’re lying to ourselves—than on lying as intentional untrue statements. Little children do not lie to themselves. We learn lying from things society and our parents tell us that aren’t true. We may think our wants are needs. A lot of lying occurs because perception is limited. We selectively perceive things that have survival value for us and tend not to register other things that don’t have payoffs. The Work involves developing diffuse rather than selective attention if we gradually train attention to free itself from being magnetized by phenomena based on conditioning. Lies and self-deception are prevalent in relationships, business, medicine, school, sports, history, the news, politics, etc. Some types of lying include denial, exaggeration, minimization, restructuring, confabulation, paltering, and beliefs—which are ways of coping with mystery and uncertainty. A common belief is that we have free will, but we can consider the Buddhist principle of independent origination: the cause of any one thing is everything else. Comparison is an unconscious form of lying because everything is unique. Evaluative statements apply to a moment in time, but we’re constantly changing. The big lie is that we are separate independent entities. A way of working with kidding ourselves is to work with not drawing conclusions. We can see that our attention is scattered, return it to what we are doing, notice sensations in the body, and develop a witness function. We can have compassion for ourselves and others as we develop the capacity to meet others with greater honesty. Refining our attention will create greater self-honesty. Karl has been a spiritual practitioner for forty years. He lived in India for seven years and has a passion for considering the essential similarities of spiritual traditions.

How Do We Enter the Heart, and What Do We Find When We Enter? The Way of the Pilgrim and the Prayer of the Heart (Regina Sara Ryan)

The gesture of bowing the head is a ritual in all traditions that acknowledges the wisdom of sinking the mind into the heart. The Christian mystical tradition is ancient and includes writings such as the Philokalia (which dates back to the Desert Fathers), The Cloud of Unknowing, and The Way of the Pilgrim. The heart can only be experienced. If there is the tiniest urge to explore this depth, it is the Divine asking to be explored through and as us. The Christian Prayer of the Heart in the West is not all that different from the repetition of mantra in the Hindu tradition. Some diligence and practice allows a particular prayer to become so much a part of our being that it arises spontaneously with our thoughts and breath. This is different than trying to be a spiritual athlete, which can undermine our practice. The Prayer of the Heart is some form of “Lord Jesus have mercy on me.” Hesychia is a Greek word that means tranquility or peace. People have always gone into retreat to find a place of sanctuary, which is so needed in the midst of a stimulated life. Yet, the whole idea of pilgrimage, of opening and searching for wisdom, has lost meaning. The heart is our moral compass. In a spiritual sense, it is not a particular organ but full body consciousness penetrated by the presence of divinity. The Christian monk Thomas Merton recognized that everyone has this divinity, which is like a blazing sun, and that the gate of heaven is everywhere. We can meet each other and know that godliness is in everyone even if it is covered over with many veils. The repetition of the Prayer of the Heart leads to silence and affects the world. To set the heart on fire is to be consumed by love. Prayer is given as grace, as a gift. Regina is the editor of Hohm Press, a workshop leader, retreat guide, and the author of The Woman Awake, Igniting the Inner Life, Praying Dangerously, Only God, and other books.

Impermanence: Living with Reality (Bhadra Mitchell)

Virtually everything about the path is covered when we consider impermanence: death, rebirth, linear time, eternity, presence, change, transition, attachment, identification, freedom, unity, fear, projections, denial, the divine path of growing old, groundlessness, surrender, grace, etc. Is it life or attachment that we wish to prolong? We are not able to fully profit from the path until we face death. Nothing exists as a permanent entity, but we suffer when we do not live this truth. Bhadra Mitchell, a long-time spiritual practitioner, discusses the learning that occurred for her in the process of living with cancer and having her house burn down in a wildfire. She speaks of her experience including surrender to others who provided her care; groundlessness and letting go of attachments and identification as an artist; compassion for others who live in situations of hunger and paralysis; recognition that what happens in life is ultimately out of our control; appreciation for the love, help, and care of others; and acceptance for how life has gone. It’s possible to see the circumstances that brought us to face impermanence as a gift—at least in retrospect—and to realize that we can’t always get what we want but we get what we need. We always have to continue to work with identification and attachment. Mind is a binary, “yes-no,” “good-bad” mechanism. Making judgments is useless because we are not in touch with the big picture when we do this. Ego creates division and the assumption of separation from reality or God. When we let go of “yes-no” and “good-bad,” we can step into the present where death does not exist. While this can just be a theoretical perspective, we sometimes tap into the present where there is unity and love. We usually think of impermanence in a catastrophic way, but impermanence is here in each moment.

The Rough Road to Self Awareness: Intention, Attention, and Risk (Juanita Violini)

The only way to access our birthright of a glorious and magnificent life is to know ourselves. The only way to know ourselves is by becoming self aware. Otherwise, we are machines, slaves to forces acting upon us. What we see and are told about the world as children are different things. We go from having an open and unprotected heart to numbness and repression. To live beyond our conditioning, we must know our motives, urges, and reactions. Dependence on an authority and not thinking for ourselves blocks us from being true to ourselves. Studying books and teachings can be useful and point us to a door, but it's up to us to walk through it. We can take an easy road and avoid the risk of seeing things we don’t like or want to see about ourselves, which is unfulfilling. Self awareness happens entirely within ourselves. When we stay with and question our pain, clarity can arise. Once we know what is true for us, we can take a stand. There is value in apprenticing with someone who has gone further on the path, but we can’t just take someone’s word for something. We need to feel the truth of it for ourselves by being aware of what is going on in our bodies. Help comes to us uninvited. We need other people and circumstances to see ourselves. Personal experiences of becoming self-aware are discussed. It’s difficult to stay in our bodies when we want to shut down. One way we pay for self awareness is with our attention. We can only do this work alone, but we are not alone in our experience. Bringing awareness to mechanical behaviors gives us choice. Once we see something about ourselves, it’s easier to see it. We may not be able to learn unless we make mistakes. Being kind to ourselves is a big step on the road to self awareness. Juanita is an artist and writer/producer of interactive mystery entertainment who has been a student of the spiritual path for over 35 years.

The Restoration of Love (Elise Erro)

The Soul comes to Earth to learn how to restore love. We can only do this by being present to relationship in all of its forms and textures. The task is to struggle to remain present and to "eat impressions." To "eat" emotions, reactions, and judgments does not mean to suppress them but to remain present to them and allow the body to transform the energy. The "practice of presence" is not a philosophy; it is a practice which restores relationship. This only seems unnatural, at first, because of a lifetime of learned habits to avoid relationship. If we are not conscious of the body, we are not conscious and therefore cannot restore love. Restoring love is done through kindness, forgiveness, and apology. This talk is based on material provided by Red Hawk. The restoration of love is a practice that is always available. We can learn to praise what is praiseworthy instead of looking at what we disagree with or feel we cannot forgive. Relationship can be a bigger priority than being right. We can cultivate the mindset of being of service to what is needed in the environment. Our work is to discover our work and then give ourselves to it with all of our heart. We can give others our attention, which is love, in everyday circumstances such as are discussed in the role of a cashier in a supermarket. Love is a stable condition of being that can be developed. It can be uncomfortable to be vulnerable when one practices restoring love. Being a human being is messy, but we can clean up our messes. Remorse is the fuel that can bring about transformation and is a conscious decision not to act in the same way; beating oneself up through guilt is a bad habit. Quandaries continue to present themselves, but to stay with the process is the way through. Elise Erro (e.e.) has been committed to a life of engaging spiritual principles and service through theater, support for the dying, and bringing enjoyment to others as a chocolatier.

Eating Bears: Notes on How to Go About It (Jocelyn del Rio)

Transformation on many levels is what living things are designed for by the creation. We are embodied souls, on earth to experience, learn, and develop through the body. Nothing is static. We don’t know how systems work until we start looking. In the system we are in, everything is a form of food. We have an obligation to serve the system and pay for our existence through what we take in and give out. We can take in more if we are “empty.” Creation can take care of its own transformation when we get out of our own way and allow the universe to move through us. The last act of life will be exhalation. We can learn to trust the process and exhale. A principle of ayurvedic medicine is to never inhibit natural discharges of the body. If we push down emotional “bears,” we will have trouble with them later. We can be addicted to our activities, emotions, and thoughts. Overabundance can lead to addiction if we define freedom as unlimited gratification. On the path, we have to relate to the bears in our lives, to all that we see as threatening. Relationship is part of the necessary blueprint to grow; we give and we receive. Sharing good company with a bear may be the best way to eat it. Our interaction with suffering can be useful or not depending on our strength of practice. We can transform suffering into compassion. Rare beings have offered unconditional love, teaching, and a way through life that we can aim for. The deeper the sorrow, the more joy we can contain. Our experiences send emotions as messengers. We do not accomplish transformation and the timing is not up to us, but we can allow ourselves to align with it. We can learn to live “full out” by meeting life openly. Jocelyn is a spiritual student, artist, therapist, mother, gardener, and builder whose main interest in life is growth, development, evolution, observing in awe and participating in the cyclic nature of life.