If you are like most people from time to time you question your life; and if done effectively how to change our worldview.  Is the world in which we “think” we live the reality we want to live in?  Are we happy with our existence on this round blue ball called earth?  If we are not happy how can we, change our emotional, spiritual and physical experiences?

I am pleased to say that in this interview with author Rodney Smith about his book “Touching the Infinite-A New Perspective on Buddha’s Four Foundations of Mindfulness” you can find a starting point in which you can look at your life, and question your perceived reality.  What is the truth?

As Rodney states ” The spiritual journey is looking behind the scenes.  We have all grown up holding the world to a conventional set of criteria established by our cultural and personal norms. These norms established our worldview and are embedded early in childhood. There is both a conscious and unconscious part of our drama, a part that we are willing to see and a part that does not fit our script.”  As Buddha taught “only one thing, suffering, and its cessation

If you want to release yourself from the shackles of life, you best look at the world from the perspective of the end of suffering.  “When we question what we are doing and why we have to steer the question through the continuum bounded by suffering and the end of suffering: Does this method you are employing, this effort you are exerting, this goal you are setting, add to or alleviate suffering?

I am fascinated by Rodney Smith’s perspective, his book and teaching and I know you are going to learn tremendous lessons from our dialogue in the interview.

If you want to learn more about “Touching the Infinite” just click the link.   You can also click any of the highlighted URL to be directed to the book on Amazon.

Enjoy this wonderful dialogue with a very informative and deep teacher of living a life of mindfulness.

 

ken

I was honored to interview Ken Wilber for his new book “The Religion of Tomorrow-A Vision for the Future of the Great Traditions.”   This is a wonderfully written book and informs the reader of the insights about what will be required to transform religions if are to stay relevant into the future.  As Ken states “Religions can only stay relevant if they embrace the discoveries of science and the insights of psychology to offer an “integral” approach: bringing together the wisdom of many paradigms and respecting the individuality of seekers.

Ken and I speak about the esoteric and exoteric religions and the great differences that these two movements have created in the evolution of religion.  As we discuss Ken states that the exoteric religions have always cooperated and shared insights and wisdom while the exoteric religions have done more to divide people and create chasms in people’s beliefs.  Experts state the 70% of the world’s population is at a fundamentalists stage of development, where their given religion is taken to be the literal word of God and mythic stories become fact. Ken explains how we can help this percentage of the population to “grow up” and embrace more inclusive views that will help curb violence and global conflict.

Ken’s long-awaited “The Religion of Tomorrow” is a definitive text on spirituality and religion in the modern world.  The Great Traditions from Christianity, to Islam and beyond have failed to evolve, unlike nearly every other dimension of modern life.  If you want to learn more about what Ken believes the “Religion of Tomorrow” will look like I encourage you to listen to our interview.

If you want to learn more about Ken Wilber you can click here to go to his Integral Life website.

 

This is my second interview with author Andrew Holecek.  In our interview about his new book entitled “Dream Yoga-Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep“, Andrew and I speak about now only how to utilize lucid dream “dream yoga” to gain insights about your true self and your personal desires.

Andres states that there are three essential ingredients for lucid dreaming (1) strong motivation or intention, (2) good dream recall, and (3) practicing the induction techniques.

So just what are the induction techniques, (1) is something called the “state check” this is a questions that you pose throughout your waking day asking yourself “Is this a dream?”  “Am I dreaming?”, this is designed to bring awareness to your state of consciousness.  (2) is something called “dreamsigns”.  This is when we become sensitized to the out-of-the-ordinary dreamlike events that occur during the day and to use these events that occur as triggers to conduct a “stage check”.  (3) Something called “prospective memory”.  This is where you are remembering to do something in the future.  It’s almost an oxymoron, because memory is associated with the past and prospective is associated with the future.  An example of this is telling yourself that every time you get a text message you’ll remember to do a state check–another way to remind yourself to check in about your state of consciousness and awareness of what is happening around you.

Andrew’s new book “Dream Yoga” is filled with great instruction on how to develop a state of lucid dreaming.  If you are interested in learning more about lucid dreaming and how to practices techniques that will trigger your nightly deep dream states with great recall then I would recommend you obtaining a copy of “Dream Yoga“.  I also think that listening to our interview will provide you with a great overview of “Dream Yoga” and Andrew is truly one of the master instructors on this topic.

To learn more about “Dream Yoga“please visit Andrew’s website by clicking here, or  you can watch a great video that Andrew recorded about “Dream Yoga” by clicking this link.  

I hope you enjoy this wonderful interview with author Andrew Holecek.