Western Baul Podcast Series
Religion & Spirituality
About
The Western Baul Podcast Series features talks by practitioners of the Western Baul path. Topics are intended to offer something of educational, inspirational, and practical value to anyone drawn to the spiritual path. For Western Bauls, practice is not a matter of philosophy but is expressed in everyday affairs, service to others, and music and song. There is the recognition that all spiritual traditions have examples of those who have realized that there is no separate self to substantiate—though one will always exist in form—and that “There is only God” or oneness with creation. Western Bauls, as named by Lee Lozowick (1943-2010), an American spiritual Master who taught in the U.S., Europe, and India and who was known for his radical dharma, humor, and integrity, are kin to the Bauls of Bengal, India, with whom he shared an essential resonance and friendship. Lee’s spiritual lineage includes Yogi Ramsuratkumar and Swami Papa Ramdas. Contact us: westernbaul.org/contact
Episodes
- The Benefits of Recapitulation Practice and How to Engage It (Rick Lewis)
Rick Lewis explores the practice of recapitulation, suggesting that sharing life stories and honestly confronting one's past can lead to healing, self-discovery, and integration. He emphasizes the importance of being present and undefended…
- Sensation: The Language of the Body (Naomi Worob)
Naomi Worob explores our cultural disconnection from the body, contrasting it with interoception and somatic experiencing. The discussion covers how awareness of bodily sensations aids regulation and integrating experiences, referencing Pe…
- A Creative Life Is a Conscious Life (Karl Krumins)
This episode discusses creativity as a fundamental aspect of consciousness, exploring its connection to passion, play, and purpose. It examines how art helps in self-expression and facing challenges, and considers ways to integrate creativ…
- Walking Side by Side with Grief for a Lifetime (Nachama Shahar)
This episode discusses grief not as a source of constant sorrow, but as an integral part of life
- Accessing Sources of Spiritual Inspiration (VJ Fedorschak)
This episode discusses accessing spiritual inspiration through selflessness and embodying spiritual qualities, contrasting it with ego-driven achievements. It highlights how stories, regardless of factual accuracy, can nurture these qualit…
- Halfway Up the Mountain: 25 Years Later (Mariana Caplan)
This episode features Mariana Caplan discussing the challenges within spiritual teaching relationships, differentiating psychological maturity from spiritual awakening, and critiquing the Western adoption of the guru model. Caplan also tou…
- Gurdjieff's Aphorisms 3: The Nature of the Path (Carl Grimsman)
This talk, the third on Gurdjieff's aphorisms, discusses the nature of the spiritual path, emphasizing individual journeys and the three-centered being concept of the Fourth Way. Practices like simplicity, super efforts, and engaging with…
- Rhythm, Ritual & Reverie (Mary Angelon Young)
Mary Angelon Young explores the concepts of rhythm, ritual, and reverie, and how these practices can help individuals align with existence and manage life's burdens. The discussion includes the role of routines as grounding tools and the s…
- Union (Lama Barbara DuBois)
This episode of the Western Baul Podcast Series features Lama Barbara Du Bois discussing the union of the Two Truths, absolute and relative. It examines how dualistic consciousness and the concept of "self" generate suffering and the spiri…
- Eating Impressions: Staying Put in Your Vibratory Atmosphere (Red Hawk)
This episode of the Western Baul Podcast Series discusses the energetic nature of existence, introducing the concept of being-foods—physical sustenance, air (prana), and impressions—as crucial for spiritual development. It explains how con…
- Fun with Self-Hatred (Bandhu Dunham)
This episode of the Western Baul Podcast Series discusses self-hatred, defining it as a critical inner voice beyond evaluation, often transmitted across generations. It examines various manifestations like imposter syndrome and perfectioni…
- Third and Fourth Quarter Game Plans: Spirituality in the Second Half of Life (Regina Sara Ryan)
Regina Sara Ryan explores the tasks of the second half of life, focusing on detaching from earlier life attachments and cultivating elder wisdom. The episode discusses reclaiming dignity and authentic power in aging, and preparing for the…
- Feeding the Body of Light (Clelia Lewis)
This episode discusses the influence of astrological forces like Rahu and the concept of prana, suggesting reality is a field of light. It explores how individuals can nourish their "body of light" through practices such as relating to tea…
- Obsession for God (Matthew Files)
This episode of the Western Baul Podcast Series discusses "Obsession for God," describing it as an internal affair of the heart essential for the spiritual path. It explores how obsession for God can be interchangeable with obsession for l…
- The Crisis of Continuity of Wisdom (Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick)
How do people relate to a tradition once the teacher is gone and there is no authorized leader to carry it forward? An important distinction is that a tradition is intended to serve the Work and that practitioners are not obligated to serv…
- Don’t Know, Go Straight (Elise Erro/e.e.)
"Don’t Know, Go Straight" is a teaching that came from the Korean Zen master, Soen Sa Nim. We have two minds: thinking mind, and “before thinking” mind which is without thought (Don’t Know Mind). This is the mind of the moment, our true na…
- Irritation: It's a Godsend! (David Herz)
We can look on irritation as a reality check since reality inevitably falls short of our expectations. Irritation can be destructive to spaces and relationships when it becomes anger. It is a gift in that it can show us something about our…
- From Rigidity to Fluidity: The Art of Easeful (and Even Elegant) Transitions (Michael Menager and Mic Clarke)
The heart of transition is navigating liminal space. This in-between place offers an entry point into reality, a portal into deeper relationship with oneself and the Divine. We are continually in the process of transition. Each transition…
- Making the Work Your Own (VJ Fedorschak)
"Live and learn" is part of the design of a human being which comes naturally to us as children. Messages we receive in our family and society lead us to abandon our instinctual freedom and to develop habits about how to be. But the abilit…
- Living a Fluid Life (Juanita Violini)
Living a fluid life is about engaging what life gives us. As we walk through life, we’re walking through the movie we’re creating through our projections, which make life appear solid. But life or reality is fluid and dynamic, changing eve…
- O Earth, When Will We Hear You Sing... Thomas Merton and Journal Writing as Prayer (Regina Sara Ryan)
Lectio Divina (“divine reading” in Latin) is a centuries-old tradition of being inspired by reflecting on the text of a scripture. It may also be considered in terms of “reading” creation and what Thomas Merton called the “calligraphy of n…
- Does Traditional Spiritual Training Apply Anymore? (Lalitha)
Spiritual traditions have deep roots and have proven themselves over centuries to produce fruit. On the path, we experience the longing of the heart, the intuition of what is possible for a human being. Longing has no conclusion, no end. O…
- Bittersweet: A Refuge in Troubled Times (Mary Angelon Young)
The reality of impermanence and the inevitable experience of loss is enough in life to give us a wound. On the path of transformation, we need a broken heart that only God—which can be referred to in many ways such as the Divine or the Abs…
- In Relationship (Myosho Ginny Matthews)
Relationship is meeting what arises with full feeling and consciousness. Dependent co-origination means that our consciousness arises at the same time as all consciousness. Lost in inner dialogue, we do not experience true relationship. Za…
- Encouraging Boredom in Our Lives (Matthew Files)
Culturally, boredom has a negative connotation as something that we should not experience. Being bored is an uncomfortable place to be in, which we usually try to remedy. But this misses the point since boredom can be useful and even neces…
- The Essence of Creation Is Transformation (Nachama Greenwald)
Transformation is essential for the evolution and thriving of creation, which includes human beings. The process brings greater clarity, healing, and resilience into our lives and creative growth into the world. We see cycles of birth, dea…
- Cultivating Virtue: The Stoic Traits of Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice (Bandhu Dunham)
Stoicism is a philosophy founded by Zeno around the fourth century BC. It was important in Greece and Rome and culminated at the time Marcus Aurelius was emperor. The primary purpose of philosophy is to reveal our shortcomings so we can ov…
- Storytelling Is a Core Competency of Spiritual Practice (Rick Lewis)
Rick Lewis talks about the process that led him from being a performer and corporate events speaker to hosting an online writing program. Most everyone fashions a life that is obedient to our deepest fears. We carry stories about who we ar…
- Yearning, Longing, and Desire for Oneness (Debbie Hogeland-Celebucki)
Is the source of yearning for connection on a human level the same as longing for God on a spiritual level? The urge for connection is pre-thought, pre-psychological. It begins at birth when we first experience separateness. Practice is ab…
- Can’t We Just Have Fun? Seriousness, Humor, and Foolishness on the Path (Michelle Meaux)
The need for humor and for incorporating something of the clown’s state of mind into spiritual practice is discussed. Bernie Glassman was a Zen master who invited Moshe Cohen, a clown performer, to help him learn tools to work with student…
- Beginner's Mind: The "Goal" of Spiritual Practice (Vijaya Fedorschak)
Beginner’s mind is a Zen Buddhist principle of seeing everything as new, as it is, without preconception or expectation. It can be considered the simplest state but also the most advanced. Mind identifies, creates the illusion of separatio…
- Divine Alchemy: What Is It? (Mary Angelon Young)
The Latin phrase “magnum opus” means great work. Our early ancestors had an intuitive relationship with nature and received knowledge directly from it. In alchemy, great work refers to awakening consciousness, the primary metaphor being th…
- Gurdjieff’s Aphorisms 2: Crystallizing the Permanent I AM (Carl Grimsman)
The aim of self-transformation from a divided mechanical self to a unified self that is free and has will is the subject of this second talk on Gurdjieff’s aphorisms. Several quotes including some which were posted in the study house where…
- Red Hot Sadhana: In the Fire of Love and Loss (Jessica Jenns)
This talk focuses on parts of the story and the learning written about in Red Hot Steel: Love Behind Bars , which involves love and loss with a man incarcerated in a maximum security prison. Sadhana is a Sanskrit word about our individual…
- Entering Silence: An Invitation and a Possibility (Regina Sara Ryan)
We intuitively know that there is a strong connection between silence, prayer, and inner wisdom. There are Hindu teachers who have maintained silence for many years, and Zen masters and Native American elders who communicated wisdom but sp…
- All Things Lovely Exist (Naomi Worob)
The way we identify ourselves and are identified in the world puts us into boxes of what we do rather than conveying who we are. Moving our bodies in any way we want to is dance. Part of “all things lovely” is having wide eyes on what is b…
- The Urge to Win, Dominate, and Control (Bandhu Dunham)
Ego is the foil to our spiritual development, to fulfilling our capacity for awareness, compassion, creativity, and self-transcendence. The urge to win, dominate, and control is a pithy definition of ego. It can also be defined as the self…
- Present Attention is Objective Love (Red Hawk)
The being that occupies the body has two qualities—presence and attention—which is all that is needed to awaken. Attention has will and can place itself anywhere inside or outside the body. The present is the domain of the Divine and of lo…
- Just This and the Practice of Assertion (Matthew Files)
Spiritual teachings can be easily understood in a conceptual and not a bodily way. Just This, or the practice of Assertion, is the recognition of what is real in every moment. It was a practice given by the American teacher Lee Lozowick wh…
- Telling What Is True for Us and Trusting: Bridging the Inner and Outer World (Juanita Violini)
As long as we avoid truth, we are stuck in illusion. We may avoid telling the truth in small, seemingly inconsequential ways as a habit that originated in childhood as a survival mechanism. This can occur due to shame, denial, self-hatred,…
- Languaging Nonduality (Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick)
Grounded practice gives us direct experience of the pervasiveness of the mechanical, identified mind. Before we have direct experience of something, linguistic representations are ineffective at transmitting what it is. There is a distinct…
- What Can My Secret Life Offer Me on the Path? (David Herz)
Our private life involves a flow between ourselves and others, and we may choose to share details of it with those we trust will receive it with empathy, responsiveness and understanding. Our secret life, on the other hand, is known only t…
- My Interviews with Sisyphus (Tom Lennon)
The mythic image of Sisyphus, of a muscular man pushing a rock up a hill for eternity, represents something that needs to be known in us. We can consider it in various ways. For some, it’s about punishment by the gods for immoral behavior.…
- Seeing the Bigger Picture (Elise Erro/e.e.)
The reason we have questions is that we don’t see the bigger picture. As children, we don’t recognize the trauma we experience, but as we get older the sense that something is not right in life may lead us to the spiritual path. What happe…
- Conscious Surrender: Deepening Our Role in the Spiritual Process and Why It Matters (Vijaya Fedorschak)
The aim of all religions is to point out the path that leads to freedom, peace, and joy, which can only be realized through the surrender of ego. The principle of ego or separation permeates our lives. To realize oneness with God or the un…
- Keep My Heart Open in Hell (Nachama Greenwald)
Our willingness to feel the pain of the world is inextricably entwined with our capacity to love. What is the value of keeping our hearts open in hell, when life is most painful and difficult? We all have a deep desire to have our hearts a…
- Waking to Ordinary Life (Lalitha)
As long as we have a body, ordinary life will present things that ego considers problems. Waking to ordinary life implies that we’re not awake. When we are stagnant and fearful, interested in a safe comfort zone, we do not notice the beaut…
- The Art of Japa (Michael Menager and Mic Clarke)
Mantra is likely older than language, sounds that were received by the rishis, poet mystics of the Vedas. It can be silent and internal, a form of thought that reveals more as one goes deeper into it. One meaning of mantra is “crossing ove…
- Regulating the Nervous System in Spiritual Work (Clelia Vahni Lewis)
We can’t separate our nervous system from the nervous systems of others we are in relationship to since we affect one another. In a practical sense, we are not separate. Nervous systems do not develop in isolation. If we are not regulated…
- The Only Grace Is Loving God (Mary Angelon Young)
The book, The Only Grace Is Loving God , written in twilight language or ecstatic speech by Lee Lozowick in 1982, was inspired by Answer to Job , CG Jung’s discussion of the human struggle with an image we have of God and the suffering we…