Category: Health & Healing

Insights from Ayurveda

Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar is a world-renowned Ayurvedic physician from a family of Vedic healers in India. He is the director of Ayurvedic Healing, an integrative wellness clinic in northern California, and an adviser and consultant at the Chopra Center. With Sounds True, he has released the six-session audio course Ayurvedic Wellness: The Art and Science of Vibrant Health, and the two-session audio Effortless Weight Loss: The Ayurvedic Way. In this episode, Tami speaks with Dr. Suhas about dietary wisdom for long life, Ayurvedic wisdom on fasting practices, and how philosophical insights from Ayurveda can help our personal lives and our overall health care system. (69 minutes)

Plant Spirit Medicine

What is the active ingredient in plant spirit medicine? Eliot Cowan tells us that the answer is friendship. In this edition of Insights at the Edge, the author of Plant Spirit Medicine speaks with Tami about engaging in a friendship with plant spirits, and compares the act of connecting with plant spirits in your local area versus working with the spirits of plants from distant places. Tami and Eliot also discuss “great teacher plants” such as marijuana and the plants from which ayahuasca is derived, offering some of the dangers and potential benefits associated with these plants. (73 minutes)

Adyashanti: Embracing the World: Resurrecting Jesus

Adyashanti speaks with Tami Simon about his understanding of the story of Jesus. Adyashanti is an American-born teacher trained in the Zen tradition who teaches today about the process of spiritual awakening. With Sounds True, his latest project is a book and audio program called Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic. In this episode, Adya examines the deep mythic underpinnings of the story of Jesus and how it can serve as a map of awakening. He also talks about Jesus as a revolutionary figure, how the metaphor of the crucifixion helped him process his own experience with intense physical pain, and the redemptive power of love to restore us to our natural state. (79 minutes)

The Presence of Spirit

Deena Metzger—author, poet, teacher, and the creator of the classic Sounds True audio title This Body, My Life—has an in-depth conversation with Tami Simon. Tami and Deena discuss her work with the ReVisioning Medicine organization and the necessity of listening to the story that chronic illness is trying to tell you about your body. They also talk about creating a “literature of restoration,” intended to promote values other than those pushed by materialistic society and to focus on what is truly life-giving. Finally, Deena expounds on the idea of the coming “Fifth World” and the steps necessary to create it. (62 minutes)

Dr. Andrew Weil on “cooking” meditation

In many contemplative traditions, it is said that we can practice meditation during the most ordinary activities, such as taking a walk, washing the dishes, or even in the midst of a busy day of emails. Here, our friend and Sounds True author Dr. Andrew Weil shows how the simple art of cooking – when engaged in a present, mindful, and open way – can offer a gateway into the experience of meditation.

We’d love to hear from you on how cooking and other so-called “ordinary” activities offer you a portal into deeper love, awakening, and aliveness in the present moment.

We Are Always Dreaming

Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Catherine Shainberg, a teacher who has more than 40 years experience adapting traditional practices into a modern medical context. Dr. Shainberg is the founder of the School of Imagery, and with Sounds True she has released the new book DreamBirth: Transforming the Journey of Childbirth Through Imagery. In this episode, Tami speaks with Dr. Shainberg about the Kabbalistic lineage in which she’s been trained, how imagery is the language of the body, how the style of imagery she teaches can jolt us into spontaneous insight, and the effectiveness of imagery for mothers in every phase of the journey through childbirth. (66 minutes)

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