The Great Updraft

Self-Improvement

About

The Great Updraft means sweeping upward growth. The name is a metaphor for the journey towards our greatest expression. My goal is to help you live a full life. I’ll help you become satisfied on all levels: psychological, social, financial, spiritual, professional, and more, integrating the many threads into a sublime whole. The GU is the set of tools you need to unlock your full potential. Visit my site

Episodes

  • Your Mind is a Mosaic

    This podcast snippet, 'Your Mind is a Mosaic,' discusses how our psychology is shaped by a complex mosaic of factors. The elements we choose to emphasize reflect our individual psychology. This is a segment from the episode 'What Is Psycho…

  • Psychology = Why You Are As You Are

    This episode snippet defines psychology as the study of why individuals are the way they are. The definition is described as simple, deceptive, and powerful.

  • What is Psychology?

    This episode defines psychology as the study of human behavior and explores the diversity of perspectives within the field. It addresses fundamental questions and sets the stage for a series on psychological and self-development work.

  • Spiritual Awareness is Ultimate

    This episode explores the relationship between science and spiritual awareness, arguing that absolute understanding of reality is achieved through the latter. It is a snippet from the longer episode titled, "If Science Isn't Ultimate, How…

  • The Problem With Scientific Slogans

    The episode discusses how scientific concepts are often oversimplified into cultural slogans, like the idea that brains crave dopamine, and explores the problems associated with this reductionist approach.

  • Science is an Ever-Improving Approximation of Reality

    This episode of The Great Updraft discusses science as a conceptual and limited approximation of reality. It explores how science, rather than being ultimate truth, serves as a method that may or may not lead to understanding the fundament…

  • If Science Isn’t Ultimate, How Should We Use It?

    This episode discusses how to practically apply scientific knowledge in daily life, following a critical examination of science's limitations. It aims to prevent an overwhelming reliance on scientific epistemology.

  • What Science Misses About Experience

    This episode explores how science attempts to explain and describe human experience, arguing that experience itself is primary and that science misses key aspects by not fully recognizing this.

  • Guided Exercise for Recognising Non-duality

    This episode of The Great Updraft features a guided exercise focused on recognizing non-duality. The practice is derived from the episode titled What If Experience is Fundamental?

  • What is Experience?

    This episode explores the definition of experience and its fundamental nature. It features a segment from the episode, What If Experience is Fundamental?

  • What If Experience Is Fundamental?

    This episode of The Great Updraft discusses the idea that life is solely current experience, a concept science often overlooks. It posits that all knowledge, including scientific understanding, arises within experience, and features a guid…

  • Why Models Obscure Understanding

    This episode snippet, from 'Science is Addicted to Explanations,' focuses on the concept that models can hinder true understanding. Additional resources and a podcast library are available.

  • Does Science Actually Describe Reality?

    This episode questions whether science truly describes reality, arguing that it often reduces wholes to their parts, like calling a human merely a collection of cells, when the human is an irreducible entity.

  • What Models Actually Are & Their Fundamental Flaw

    This episode discusses the nature of models, defining them as representations of phenomena rather than the phenomena themselves. It explains the inherent limitation that models cannot truly describe phenomena due to their fundamental natur…

  • Science is Addicted to Explanations

    This episode examines the philosophy of science, focusing on how the reliance on models and explanations can lead to significant problems and limitations within scientific understanding.

  • The Brain Is In Experience

    This episode explores the perspective that instead of experience arising from the brain, the brain is actually contained within our experience.

  • Your Brain Does Not Think

    This episode challenges the notion that 'my brain thinks,' arguing that individuals do not experience their brain when they are thinking. It discusses common cliches surrounding thought patterns.

  • Your Brain Is Not the Source of Fear

    This episode explores questioning the idea that the brain is the primary source of fear, challenging the notion that fear is solely caused by brain activity. It serves as a snippet from a previous episode titled The Limits of Brain Science.

  • The Limits of Brain Science: Why Correlation Isn’t Explanation

    This episode analyzes the distinction between physical brain activity and subjective human experience. It argues that while brain processes and experiences correlate, the two phenomena cannot be reduced to one another.

  • Science’s Hidden Black Hole

    This episode discusses how science questions the concept of self, despite neuroscience stating it's a result of brain activity. It also explores the confusion between accumulating knowledge and true wisdom.

  • The Main Blind Spot in Science

    This episode discusses how science, while highly skeptical, rarely applies that skepticism to itself, focusing instead on calculation and application while neglecting epistemology and philosophy.

  • The Echo Chamber of Science

    This episode discusses how science can function as an echo chamber, relying on repetition and imitation within existing frameworks rather than fostering original insights. This dynamic is also reflected in scientific training.

  • The Hidden Dogma In Scientific Thinking

    This episode discusses the philosophical assumptions embedded in scientific practice, arguing they function as unexamined dogma. It aims to help listeners understand and overcome scientism.

  • Why You Cannot Learn Spirituality

    This episode discusses the nature of spiritual learning, emphasizing that it requires individuals to first believe they don't know their true nature and then embark on a personal journey of discovery, as external guidance is insufficient.

  • Why Do Spiritual Teachers Teach at All?

    This episode discusses the illusionary nature of spiritual teaching and explores several hidden, and not always positive, motivations behind why spiritual teachers teach.

  • The Flaw at the Heart of Spiritual Teaching

    This episode explores the fundamental flaw in spiritual teaching, identifying underlying assumptions as the core issue. It references a prior episode, "What Spiritual Teaching Can't Do."

  • What Spiritual Teaching Can’t Do

    This episode of The Great Updraft discusses the inherent limitations of spiritual teaching, arguing that it cannot provide recognition of one's true nature as it is beyond conceptualization. The episode also touches on the idea that the ac…

  • The Spiritual Search Ends Where You Already Are

    This episode emphasizes that the true meditative path is found by being fully present in every situation, rather than seeking elsewhere. Continuing on this path means fully engaging with the now, which is the way to return home.

  • The Hidden Escape Inside Meditation

    This episode discusses the common meditator

  • Welcome to Deep Psychology Podcast - Start Here

    This episode guides listeners through the core content of The Great Updraft podcast, highlighting four fundamental episodes: 'What Is The Meaning of Life?', 'Your Psychology=Your Life', 'We All Live In Our Own World', and 'The Grand, Unive…

  • Newbie Meditators Have Unrealistic Expectations

    This episode addresses the unrealistic expectations common among new meditators regarding the effects and outcomes of meditation. It highlights how marketing often promises immediate calm, peace, and wisdom, which differs from the actual p…

  • Why Meditators Stall on the Path

    The Great Updraft episode "Why Meditators Stall on the Path" discusses three practical reasons why meditation practitioners may face difficulties in progressing towards deeper insights.

  • The Power of The Word "Recognition" to Describe Awakening

    The host of The Great Updraft explains their increasing use of the term "recognition" to describe the experience of awakening. More resources are available at deep-psychology.com.

  • The Word "Enlightenment" Creates False Expectations

    The podcast episode discusses the word "enlightenment," suggesting it often creates false expectations regarding spiritual awakening. It proposes that while the term can inspire some, alternative words might be more suitable for describing…

  • What The Word "Enlightenment" Does Right

    The episode "What The Word "Enlightenment" Does Right" from The Great Updraft discusses how the term "enlightenment" effectively conveys two key elements of spiritual awakening: transformation and insight, even though the word itself may h…

  • Is Enlightenment The Right Word?

    This episode of The Great Updraft challenges the common usage of the term "enlightenment" in spirituality, suggesting that the reality of awakening is often a more gradual and ordinary experience rather than a climactic transformation.

  • The Late Stage of Meditation

    This episode discusses the late stage of meditation, a state achieved by a small fraction of practitioners where awakening permanently changes perception, leading to the understanding that there is no central self for awakening to occur.

  • The Middle Stage of Meditation

    The middle stage of meditation, practiced by 5-10% of meditators, is characterized by the stabilization of awakening. During this stage, thoughts lose their automatic authority and are perceived as mere appearances, not definitive truths.

  • The Early Stage of Meditation

    This episode discusses the early stage of meditation, describing it as a distinct activity. It also touches on the common perception of awakening as a future event achieved through effort.

  • The Three Stages of Meditation & Spiritual Insight

    This episode discusses the developmental dimensions of meditation, explaining that the practice unfolds in recognizable stages rather than being a uniform experience. It explores how these stages involve shifts in identity, perception, and…

  • Meaningful, Meaningless & Ameaningful

    This episode discusses the distinct concepts of meaningful, meaningless, and ameaningful, noting that meaning and meaninglessness are interdependent. It suggests that a life can be ameaningful, and questioning the meaning of life does not…

  • The Problems In Discussing The Meaning Of Life

    This episode discusses the challenges inherent in exploring the meaning of life, highlighting the common tendencies to overcomplicate, oversimplify, or defer to others for answers.

  • Exploring Personal Meaning: Why Are You Here?

    This episode delves into the concept of personal meaning, discussing how it functions and what questions can help uncover its core structure. It is a snippet from the episode "What Is The Meaning Of Life?"

  • What is The Meaning of Life?

    This episode tackles the profound question of the meaning of life, examining why individuals exist and the purpose behind life itself. It is the final episode in a series on deep questions.

  • The Necessity of Self-Other Consciousness

    This episode discusses self-other consciousness, explaining its essential function and the importance of understanding rather than discarding it. It touches on related concepts from the "Do Other People Exist?" series.

  • Self & Other As A Developmental Achievement

    The episode "Self & Other As A Developmental Achievement" discusses how the sense of self and other is developed in childhood, framing it as a construct rather than an inherent given. It suggests that recognizing this construct allows for…

  • The Standard Paradigm Regarding Other People

    The episode discusses the conventional belief that other individuals possess separate, independent experiences. It suggests these assumptions are questionable and invites listeners to reconsider them.

  • Do Other People Exist?

    This episode of The Great Updraft questions the assumption of other people's independent existence, suggesting it might be a useful paradigm rather than an absolute truth.

  • Do Other People Exist?

    This episode questions the assumption of other people's separate existence, suggesting it might be a useful paradigm rather than a definitive reality. The host concludes that other people exist, but with a nuanced perspective.

  • Deeply Questioning the Materialistic Paradigm

    This episode questions the materialistic paradigm, suggesting its underlying assumptions are flawed despite its practical utility. It revisits points from the 'Is The World Physical?' episode.