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Welcome to the Human Race

Parker J. Palmer is a writer, speaker, and activist who is world-renowned for his many insightful books, including Let Your Life Speak and Healing the Heart of Democracy. With Sounds True, he has most recently contributed to the anthology Darkness Before Dawn: Redefining the Journey Through Depression. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Parker discuss his own passages through clinical depression and the meaning he derived from them. They also speak on the modern cultural taboo surrounding depression, and how depression is actually an innate part of the life journey. Finally, Parker and Tami talk about how depression can act as “a befriending force pushing you down onto safe ground”—an agent that can help course-correct a life lived “at altitude.” (86 minutes)

The Perception of Separation – with Tara Brach

Excerpted from Meditation and Psychotherapy: A Professional Training Course for Integrating Mindfulness into Clinical Practice, Tara Brach offers a nutshell summary for why we suffer: we suffer because we’re identified as a separate self. Noting fear as the “primal mood” of the separate self, Tara addresses the deeply rooted perception that something is missing or is fundamentally wrong.

Learn more about the Meditation and Psychotherapy home study course, and guided meditations from Tara Brach.

This is your gift to the world

The fear of being abandoned. The terror of being lonely forever. The anxiety of being utterly dependent upon another. The panic of unbearable vulnerability and exposure. The dread of the looming death of yourself and everyone around you. These are the great fears that come as you wake, as you fall asleep, and as you dream through this life.

But perhaps the greatest fear of all is the fear of being loved. We don’t really see it this way, though. For when you are really loved, when you are entirely seen, when you are fully held, it is the end of your world as you know it. You will never be the same. You will never again be able to pretend that you are other than perfect and precious as you are. And that is terrifying.

Life is always seeing you in this way.

You long to be loved, to be seen, but please know that the implications are immense; they are cosmic. To allow yourself to be loved in this way a part of you must die. Everything you thought you weren’t must be surrendered. You must let go of the stories of the unlovable one, the awakened one, the special one, the imperfect one, and the despairing one. Love wishes to reveal your nakedness, to remove your clothing, and to burn away all that is false and less than whole within you. What you are is a raging firestorm of creativity, sensuality, openness, warmth, and kindness. Love will never stop until you know this.

In this way, love is a destructive process, for it comes to re-order everything you thought you knew. But will you step into this sweet annihilation? Yes, something will be shattered; actually, everything will be taken away. All that will be left is your wholeness and your raw, tender heart. This is your gift to this world.

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The Wisdom of the Yoga Sutras

Tami Simon speaks with Nicolai Bachman who has been studying and teaching Sanskrit, Ayurveda, and yoga-related topics for 15 years. He is the author of the Sounds True book The Language of Yoga and a new home study course The Yoga Sutras. In this episode, Nicolai introduces the Yoga Sutras written over 2,000 years ago by Patañjali and speaks about the essence of yoga and how to incorporate the messages of the Yoga Sutras into our life. (48 minutes)

Chanting as a Heart-path to God

Tami Simon speaks with Jai Uttal, a Grammy-nominated musician who is best known as a world-renowned kirtan artist, kirtan being ecstatic chant in a call-and-response format. His music is an eclectic mix of contemporary and ancient musical elements from various cultures throughout the Eastern and Western worlds. Jai has created five albums with Sounds True, including Kirtan!, and his latest release, Bhakti Bazaar. Jai discusses chanting as a devotional practice, the story of Jai’s first trip to India, his experience meeting his guru, and his understanding of the many Hindu god and goddess figures. (67 minutes)

The Illusory Ego

Tami Simon speaks with Peter Baumann and Michael Taft. Peter began his career as a member of the acclaimed band Tangerine Dream, and went on to found the Baumann Foundation, an interdisciplinary think tank dedicated to exploring what it means to be fully human. Michael has been a professional writer and researcher for more than two decades. With Natural Enlightenment Press, distributed by Sounds True, Peter and Michael have co-written the book Ego: The Fall of the Twin Towers and the Rise of an Enlightened Humanity. In this episode, Peter and Michael speak about the conceptual revolution that took place 50,000 years ago, the positive evolutionary potential of this particular time in history, and why we may be in the midst of an “enlightenment revolution” right now. (70 minutes)

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