Western Baul Podcast Series

Sun. Moon. Tantra. Navigating the Ocean of Chaos and Coherence (Angelon Young)

There are deep religious programs that go back thousands of years that tell us that we need to get away from the body and the senses. Tantra arose in response to repressive religious structures, but all indigenous and tribal cultures have their versions of tantric principles. Tantra asks if we have to abandon our earthly existence, the body, and pleasure in order to realize the bliss of the Self. The meaning of the word tantra has to do with continuity. No aspect of reality including sex is to be rejected, and the phenomenal world is co-essential with transcendental reality—they can’t be separated. The sun is a symbol for the Absolute and the moon for embodied creation. The Bauls are a sect that looks for direct relationship with the Divine, which is essential tantra. Tantra questions if we can accelerate our personal evolution on the path. This can be dangerous, especially without a qualified guide, since de-stabilizing energies can be opened up. Many ordinary, practical things to bring essential tantric practice into embodiment are discussed in this talk. Until our last breath there is work to be done and a purpose to be fulfilled. What is calling us? Angelon is a workshop leader, 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, and The Art of Contemplation.

Love and Longing: May the Heat of Suffering Become the Fire of Love (Vijaya Fedorschak)

We generally model relationships that are dysfunctional in some way since we grow up in situations where conflict and relational instability are common. That’s where we start, but we can take relationship—with whoever it is that we have love for—deep into the heart of love. There is something archetypal, that we all resonate with, about the relationship between love and longing. The mood of love that is produced in separation from a beloved is the theme of epic stories in many traditions and cultures. The tales of Romeo and Juliet, Layla and Majnun, Krishna and the gopis, and the poetry of Rumi that poured out of him evoke our own experience of deep love and longing that we have had at some point in our lives. One of the elements of conscious love (as distinct from chemical love or emotional love) is putting the other’s needs first. In the traditions, the Beloved is not an individual but is reflected in a person who can be the doorway to the state of love. If love finds us, it is free-standing, not dependent on another. In longing, the only way out is through, to love more. Life is a training ground for love even though we don’t look at it that way most of the time. VJ is author of Shadow on the Path and Father and Son.

Conscience: The Transformative Effect of Working with Inner Conflict (an interview with Clelia Lewis)

The happiness of others fulfills the deepest need of the heart. Conscience develops with remorse, which is different than guilt. It involves the capacity to feel multiple contradictory things, conflicting parts of ourselves, at the same time. The “real war” is with sleep and unconsciousness and is about becoming a participant in life with one’s whole heart and self. Music makes a communication that can bypass the mind. (Two Attila the Hunza songs are played during the interview.) There is “no magic pill” in spiritual work. Buffers are physical, emotional or mental tendencies that lessen or negate the impact of feeling one’s true nature. To do deep spiritual work we need to love ourselves. Conscience is more than following moral prescriptions. A deeper sense of conscience comes from the recognition that we’re not living the full potential of this life. Clelia is author of Stainless Heart: The Wisdom of Remorse and a freelance editor specializing in works of spiritual teachings, memoir, and self-development. She has been a longtime student of Lee Lozowick and a singer and performer in the band Attila the Hunza.

The Way of the Wise Woman: A Deeper Dive into the Awakening of the Mother Spirit (Red Hawk)

One must leave the mind and all of its knowledge at the gate of the Mother Spirit, which dwells in the present only and is a still field of vibratory awareness. We then enter into completely unknown territory. Awareness of the breath is an objective feedback mechanism that lets us know when we are present and awake in the body. The most fundamental, primal, and ancient of all longings is to return to the Mother, which is stillness. Active stillness is a masculine move that involves the active movement of attention from the head-brain into the body that allows the inner feminine energy to emerge. When one engages active stillness, thoughts begin to lose some of their power over us. There are gaps between thoughts that we can then begin to investigate. Two secret keys to awakening the feminine are forgiveness and apologies. In embracing the practice of active stillness, we embrace life and death as one and the same. One returns to the breath over and over, as one returns to the mother. The feminization of inner work is considered through Red Hawk’s poetry. Red Hawk is the author of 12 books, including The Way of the Wise Woman, Self Remembering, Self Observation, and Return to the Mother. He held the Alfred Hodder Fellowship in the Humanities at Princeton University in 1991-1992. He was a finalist for the Walt Whitman award of the Academy of American Poets and a runner-up for the Paterson Poetry Prize.

Enlightenment? (Jocelyn del Rio)

Enlightenment does not exist as a thing that can be achieved or acquired. We can see its effect, which cannot be grasped. There is a Buddhist perspective that there is no enlightened person, only enlightened activity. Knowing the truth of reality is irrelevant if our behavior does not serve reality. Impermanence can be known as an advantage, as a blessing and not a threat. The person is continually in process, fluid, connected, and not the collection of memories that we call ourselves. There is a chance to live as freedom for something rather than to see the process as a battle. We fear a relationship with enlightenment, but change is nature’s delight. We are happiest when we have the least concern for ourselves. The quality of what we give back to the world is something we can consider. Transformation happens in action which can be simple and unspectacular. In enlightened activity, a person does not leave a karmic trace—the activity does. Jocelyn is a mother, artist, logotherapist and spiritual practitioner who has been involved in homeschooling, teaching and reclaiming burnt out land to become farms and homes. She is interested in growth and in the possibilities of the human being and the Earth.

Understanding the Persistence of 'Sleep' (Unconsciousness) (Matthew Files)

One way of allowing a topic to go deep is not putting it in a box of what we assume we already know. Through self-observation, we can see that we are not free but that we react constantly to circumstances in the environment. We can't get beyond this state of sleep because of the place we live life from: the context of scarcity and survival (which involves self-image, our identity, who we take ourselves to be). Scarcity is the deeply held belief that there is never enough. Everybody's story of sleep/unconsciousness is the same in principle, which is suffering. Anything we try to do to alleviate suffering perpetuates it. To be asleep is to assume the body-mind is who we are, and that is the context of survival. We can do something about this, but by seeing and not by trying to fix it. Matthew facilitates groups that support people to look deeper into their process, formulate their own questions, and become responsible for their choices.

Spiritual Warriorship and the Undefended Life (Nachama Greenwald)

A defended life is defined by survival, overreactivity, the drive to territorialize and control, to dominate and always be right, which has a cost in that we live in a narrow and confined range of experience and perception. When we relax our defenses, a sense of awe and reverence for life can arise. We are often defended not only from the outer world but also from the inner world of our own feeling. When we are undefended, there is fluidity, flexibility, creativity, and a greater intimacy with reality which allows room for life to touch us. We also need intelligence and discrimination about vulnerability. Impermanence informs a warrior’s life and action. To be a warrior requires courage to live a fully embodied life, to feel fully with an open heart. A warrior cultivates the ability to let go. 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.

A Deeper Yoga: Moving Beyond Image to Wholeness and Freedom (Christina Sell)

A deeper yoga implies a surface to the experience of life, which can be beautiful, and a depth, a deeper reality. Regular immersion into practices and behaviors that move us into the depth of who we are is like jumping into the ocean. When we come out we bring some of the ocean with us into ordinary life so that the depth informs the surface. The stages of “clean up, grow up, wake up, show up,” discussed by Ken Wilber and Richard Rohr, are not linear. Even in the midst of cleaning up our lives, in brokenness, we can be of great service. There are two basic streams of consciousness: the outflow of attention and the inward current which is always attracted to the depth. The mood of love is the nature of the ocean of depth. Being around a real teacher can be like being around the ocean. Christina is a long-time yoga practitioner, teacher, and teacher trainer. Her books include Yoga from the Inside Out, My Body is a Temple, and A Deeper Yoga.

Faith: How Necessary is It on the Spiritual Path? (Karl Krumins)

Many in the spiritual traditions have weighed in on the subject of faith. We are already deeply immersed in the world of belief and faith based on cultural assumptions that we take for granted.  What distinctions can be made between faith and belief? We can consider faith in terms of people who are faithful, having faith in something, or as a state of being. Do we have faith in practice, teachers, God, the process, ourselves? Confusion can be seen as a gift. While it is difficult to stay in the field of ambiguity and doubt, this can be precious on the path. Unanswered questions can be a lot more valuable than answers. Once we test something and get a result, then we know it. The results of doing this may end up to something like faith. When an experience is gone, what do we have? 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.

Contemplating Continuity—A Conversation with Spiritual Friends (Barbara Du Bois)

Because we are inseparable from truth we are always in resonance with it, and thus at some level we have certainty that truth exists. This is the basis for seeking, for path, for realization. We already are that which we aspire to become, so our practices on the spiritual path are to sweep away the grasping for “self” that keeps us from recognizing the true nature. Bodhicitta, the altruistic intention to liberate all beings, gradually takes us over, opening the door from dualistic consciousness to awareness of continuity, lifetime after lifetime, and to ultimate continuity: union of absolute and relative. Barbara is a longtime practitioner and teacher of Buddhadharma. Her root lamas are His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche and His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche. She is author of Light Years: A Spiritual Memoir and Brave, Generous, and Undefended: Heart Teachings on the 37 Bodhisattva Practices.