It’s hard to imagine in the western world, but in Nigeria, girls as young as ten are married and four out of every ten girls are married before the age of eighteen, eight out of ten in the northern region. When a girl is forced into marriage, sometimes to a man old enough to be her grandfather, she often cannot continue her education unless her husband allows it, she is likely to live her life illiterate, and she faces a higher risk of death from childbirth due to being neither physically or emotionally ready.
In this episode, we speak with Habiba Mohammed and Maryam Albashir, the co-director and deputy director respectively of the Centre for Girls’ Education in Nigeria. These women have dedicated their lives to helping girls through educational programs, safe spaces, Gender-based violence prevention, vocational and leadership training and other mentorship programs through the Centre which has helped thousands of girls since it opened in 2007.
Until this interview, we did not understand just how far reaching the issue of child marriage was in the Sahel region of Africa, and we were blown away by the incredible impact these women have had in improving the lives of so many girls.
We believe that if we want to see more peace in this world, it starts with empowering the girls and women and Habiba and Maryam are showing all of us how.
You can learn more about or make a donation to the Centre for Girls Education HERE.
2.08: Marital Age in Northern Nigeria
7.23 Education of Habiba Mohammed
8.17 “My mother, she always tells me that the schooling is not for anybody but for me. So I should understand that I am not doing anybody a favor by going to school. I am doing myself. So I need to know that I want to change my life, I will be who I want to be, if I go to school. It can influence the husband that I marry, it can influence the friends that I have, and it will influence the way I want to live my life.” Habiba Mohammed
9.24 Maryam Albashir´s Story
12.20 A Mother to All
13.00 Arranged and non arranged marriages
15.00 Going to the communities
16.31 “At the safe spaces we encourage the girls to go back home and discuss what they are learning in the safe spaces to their mothers and their aunties and their other siblings. So this helped us to get very acceptance in the communities.” Habiba Mohammed
16.57 Number of girls they have helped educate
20.00 Things the girls learn at the safe spaces
20.30 “What we do at the safe spaces is also to empower her, for her to know her self worth, for her to be able to identify what she wants to become in life. Some of these girls, depending on the category of project that we enroll them into, we empower them with vocational skills. So along the line, if they start earning an income it gives them an upperhand in their homes, it gives them a voice to say who they want to be or what they want to become in life.” Maryam Albashir
23.00 1st story of success, story of Sakina
27.30 Favorite part of their job
29.50 Their message to the world
“Every girl, wherever she is, needs an education. And she needs to be empowered and she needs to be who she wants to be in life. So if we are educated and we are given that opportunity the sky is not our limit, the sky will be our starting point.” Habiba Mohammed
With all eyes on the conflict in Isreal, Lebanon and Gaza, it can be easy to sink into despair witnessing the endless stream of news stories of violence and devastation. However, there are some who are like lights in the darkness, spreading peace and love at the center of the strife.
We are so honored to have one of those people on our podcast, Nechama Shaina, an expressive arts therapist originally from the Chabad community in the Bay Area of California who currently resides in Israel with her two teenage children. She has a background in clinical psychology and uses dance, drama and visual arts in her therapy. She has been playing an active role in healing those who have been so horribly affected by the current conflict there including giving hands-on treatments for the Kibbutz Be’eri survivors of the October 7th attack where Hamas-led terrorists killed 101 people in that kibbutz alone. She also organizes healing retreats for the grieving Druze women who lost their children during the Hezbollah attack on the soccer field in Majdal Shams this past summer.
Speaking with Nechama, we were in tears listening to how she brings her life journey of creativity, her passion for the sacred feminine and her deep knowledge of the Jewish tradition to anyone who has need allowing those she treats the space to heal on the level of mind, body, heart and soul.
She is a true pioneer, and her diverse background puts her in the unique position to be of great service at this particular time in Israel’s history. We feel like we got a glimpse into what it is really like to be there now at the center of the conflict, and surprisingly, miraculously, it was a glimpse of hope.
Meditation Without Borders is currently raising funds to go to Isreal in 2025 in collaboration with Nechama Shaina to teach Vedic meditation to the women and mothers in Isreal of various backgrounds who are most effected by the current conflict. If you would like to contribute to this effort, please consider donating HERE.
Show Notes:
.30 Intro to Nechama
2.00 Nechama´s current work
3.19 Druze Community
6.18 “Once you connect to the people that have been at the edge of life and death there is something very sacred there.” Nechama
7.53 Nechama means comfort
9.25 “He said I want to continue learning Arabic cause I want to learn how to speak to the Palestinian people and not fight with weapons.” Israeli Soldier
14.00 Nechama´s story in her own words
14.20 “My Mom and Dad raised me with one of the many many foundations of the belief system that we are being breathed into existence every moment by the divine. It's not the divine that created us and this universe and just took a walk. That we are being intended or dreamed into this planet.” Nechama
15.00 The Hasidic Community
16.30 The Role of Women in Judaism
18.28 Being a Scribe and the Ketubah
22.00 Inspiration for Ketubah Piece
25.52 Collective Consciousness of Israel right now
29.30 Methods of Healing
33.50 Priestess and Weavers
35.00 The Feminine in Judaism
37.49 “Our words are so powerful right? Our words create reality. Our thoughts create reality. How much more so do our words create reality when we bring in the divine feminine in our prayers, in our words. So we are bringing her in reality, in our presence, in our consciousness.” Nechama
38.38 The Feminine Rising as Controversial in Different Traditions
40.46 Different therapies and Body work therapy for working with communities in Israel
43.00 Breathing Techniques
50.27 Pilgrimage Dream
52.07 “I felt like this dream was about opening the gates of prayer for each other. Like we are opening those gates together and praying in different languages. And that's actually what I did back in the year 2000. There was a whole group of Christians, Muslims and Jews, Israelis that came together overlooking the temple mount and the mosque and the western wall. and right in between the Jewish and Muslim quarter in the old city and we would come together, pray in different languages, talk, sing.” Nechama
52.27 “I've had this strange opportunity and it's weird to say it's an opportunity to be here in this country for really challenging times. And opportunities for a lot of growth and healing.” Nechama
Recorded October 2024
While it seems like the patriarchy is at its peak and brutality is rampant around the world, it can feel like we’re all tumbling towards darkness. However, when we take a wider view, we see that there is a larger movement at play, and there is hope of a phoenix rising from the destruction–the rising of the Feminine.
In this episode, Isabel and Kristen discuss the nature of the Feminine as infinite organizing power and how to spot its promising emergence on the world stage and in our own lives. We hope our conversation can help ease some of the anxiety around what is going on in the collective and inspire mobilization for positive change.
Show notes:
2.00 The Safe space between Women
4.20 Tide Shift of the Feminine no longer receding
7.00 The New Role
8.00 Kali Yuga
9.00 The Receding of the Feminine
12.00 The Women in Rwanda
13.00 “The feminine has in it this quality in which it sees everybody as equal.If you imagine a mother, all her children are equal to her. And so there is something about that forgiveness and that seeing everyone as the same that is required when there is such extreme division in order to come out of it.” Kristen Vandivier.
18.00 Honoring our bodies
21.00 The Role of the Masculine Rising
27.00 “How does the feminine fight? The feminine makes her enemies her devotees. Its an incorporation” Kristen Vandivier
30.00 Feminine Empowered
38.00 Setting Boundaries and Kali Mode
45.00 Betrayal
49.00 Inclusivity
53.00 Women Are Never Losers
You’ve seen them, people trying too hard, taking themselves too seriously, putting on a show, straining to appear of a higher status or consciousness state or social status than maybe they are. Perhaps you have caught yourself giving off an impression as opposed to just being your sweet but not-always-so-glamorous self.
You’d think in spiritual communities, we’d be beyond this type of behavior, but instead the environment seems to encourage it instead. So much so Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had a name for this behavior, he called it “mood making.”
In this episode, Isabel and Kristen talk about how enlightenment doesn’t have to look a certain way. They delve into the reasons why we find ourselves occasionally engaging in this cringe-worthy behavior (while sharing some of their own self-deprecating moments) and discuss how to bring yourself back to your true “warts and all” authentic self, which ironically, is the most attractive way to be.
Originally recorded in March 2024
Show Notes:
.53 What is mood making?
2.30 Mimicking what we think enlightenment looks like
4.00 Taking ourselves too seriously
4.30 Aspirational vs Relatable
6.00 Different expressions of enlightenment
7.30 “Embracing who we are, whoever that is, gets us past the mood making.” Kristen
8.00 Self-doubt and insecurity
“Realizing that whoever it is that I want to be is already me. It’s just more me. It’s me being totally comfortable with that me.” Kristen
17.30 Rice Krispies Guru
18.00 “We can’t put that consciousness state in a box. A person who is in enlightenment or has a certain percentage of enlightenment is going to act in whatever way is relevant to inspire those around him or her.” Kristen
18.30 Dualistic way of looking at things
21.26 Authenticity
“When we meditate twice a day we are going to the place that is the true us, that is the authentic `I´, it’s the big `I´, it’s that layer of being, the source of everything that is our true self.” Kristen Vandivier
22.00 Identity
23.57 “The important thing is this, to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
25.00 Enlightenment – appreciation of creation
30.40 Our true self
31.00 Stardust
33.00 Big Bang
36.30 Unique traits
38.00 Let go of the idea of enlightenment
40.00 I guess this is us
Meditation is a solitary practice right? Not necessarily. Our latest guest on our podcast is not only creating community through this individual practice, he is also pioneering a study on the effect of deep meditation on the collective consciousness.
We are delighted to have Barron Hanson on our podcast. Barron is a fellow Vedic Meditation teacher based in Australia, and has a long history of bringing people together, designing transformative experiences, creating films, and generally working to make the world a better place. His latest project, more like a family of projects, is centered on researching and documenting the “Maharishi Effect” which suggests that if 1% of a geographic population starts meditating, it can have a seismic effect on the collective. Barron wanted to see what would happen if 1% of his community in Nowra learned to meditate, and the study and documentary about the initiative is called “Be Here Nowra.”
As a compliment to “Be Here Nowra,” Barron also is spearheading a festival called “Here In Nowra” to invite meditators from all over the world to enjoy a month-long festival in October 2024 devoted to vedic philosophy, practices and teachings. It also will play a role in a study through the University of Wollongong to explore the effects of collective consciousness within the community.
And….Meditation Without Borders is going to be there as to host a talk, a teacher’s workshop on outreach teaching, and a 5-day women’s rounding retreat.
We couldn’t wait to sit down with Barron to hear how all of this came about, and to learn more about the personal journey of birthing such an ambitious and inspiring project.
If you would like to learn more about the Here In Nowra Festival, here is the link: https://www.here-in.world/
Notes:
3.00 Arriving in NYC
6.32 “I´ve always had lots of energy, the problem was channeling it.” Barron Hanson
6.52 “I started to move into things that could be more relevant and helpful to share a state of consciousness and making the world a better place.” Barron Hanson
7.10 Maharishi Effect
11.00 Challenges
11.16 “It’s not the size of the group med, it’s what you do with it.”
12.50 Importing meditators and studies on it
15.00 Invitation to come to Nowra and studies
17.40 Be Here Nowra Festival
18.00 Lighthouses and Loneliness
20.00 Individual flavors of different teachers
23.00 Experiences of building a community for Isabel and Kristen
30.00 Waves and consciousness
34.00 Coming back home to Nowra
42.00 Geysers of Creativity and Consciousness
“The story of Nowra is trying to express itself through me. I’m helping Nowra to express its own story. I’m not the driver of this, I’m the conduit.” Barron Hanson
46.40 Meditation Without Borders in Nowra
47.00 Be Here Nowra events
48.00 Call to Action
50.00 The feeling of service that comes with meditation
51.00 The feminine becoming lively
Contact Info
Here-in.world
It is hard to imagine violence on the scale that occurred 30 years ago this spring in Rwanda. But for our guest, Odette Nyiramilimo, she doesn’t have to imagine, she can remember.
We are so honored to have Odette on our podcast. She is not only a medical doctor who with her husband founded the first private maternity and pediatrics clinic in Rwanda as well as being a doctor for the Peace Corps, she also served as a senator and as Minister of State for Social Affairs under the government of Paul Kagame. Her account of the genocide is featured heavily in book “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families” by Philip Gourevitch and is also depicted as a character in the film Hotel Rwanda. She now believes that wellness is the path to helping continue the reconstruction, so she founded the Rushel Kivu Lodge on Lake Kivu, where we had our meditation retreat.
Last month when we were in Rwanda, we got to sit down with Odette in person and listened to her life story of what it was like growing up in that country during the growing escalation and then the genocide that took so many including 16 of her 17 siblings and other family members. We also got to hear about how, through her work in both medicine and politics, she played a major role in the rising of Rwanda from the ashes.
We hope you appreciate hearing Odette’s story as much as we do. By hearing her firsthand account, it made the atrocities that happened in Rwanda all those years ago seem very real for us and so much more than a historical event.
We wish to acknowledge with utmost respect the lives of all those who lost their homes, their families, their livelihood, their health, or their lives during the violence of the 1994 genocide and all the Rwandan conflicts the late 20th century.
“From that time, I never sit. I work every day. I cry when I am telling those stories but the other time I say no crying. I need to make sure no more genocide happen in Rwanda. That my children, my grandchildren, my neighbor’s children they need to have a country
where they feel safe. Not the country where I grew up.” - Odette Nyiramilimo
Show Notes:
2.00 Odette´s Childhood
6.30 1959 and the beginnings of the Genocide
10.30 “If we have to die, we die together, but here.” Odette´s Father.
13.00 First Private Clinic in Rwanda and the Peace Corps
15.40 Surviving the Genocide
23.40 “We think the war is finished. She didn´t understand it was the beginning.” Odette
25.00 Hiding in the convent
27.00 Military men
34.00 Hiding in the swamp
51.00 Interrogation with the police
53.00 “After, he has been killed. And he was a hutu. Because he protected us, and he
protected his wife and some other people maybe.” Odette.
56.00 Taken for dead
59.00 Calling friends
1.02 Hotel Rwanda
1.04 Character in the movie
1.07 “From that time, I never sit. I work every day. I cry when I am telling those stories but
the other time I say no crying. I need to make sure no more genocide happen in Rwanda.
That my children, my grandchildren, my neighbor’s children they need to have a country
where they feel safe. Not the country where I grew up.” Odette
1.08 Peace Corps Medical Officer and Doctor at the American Embassy
1.09 Orphans living with Odette
1.11 Odette as a Minister of State
1.21 Going back home
1.25 A promise of light
Thirty years ago, the world stood by as over 800,000 people were brutally killed in Rwanda over a period of three and a half months. The aftermath seemed insurmountable, yet today, Rwanda stands as one of Africa's safest destinations, boasting a stable political environment. This remarkable transformation is indebted, in large part, to resilient individuals like Mary Kalikungeri.
We are so honored to have Mary as this month’s guest. She is the director of the Rwanda Women’s Network, as well as a member of the UN Women VAW – Peace and Security Reference Team, who has been at the vanguard of rebuilding and restoring Rwanda since 1995.
Beyond her fascinating personal story, Mary illuminates how she and other trailblazers recognized that women, as givers of life, held the key to rejuvenating their homeland. She created safe spaces for women who endured violence and empowering them to turn inward and recognize their inherent value. Mary's vision was transformative, cultivating women as leaders and catalysts for change within their communities and the nation at large.
The journey she and her counterparts undertook to turn their vision of a peaceful Rwanda into reality serves as a blueprint not only for regions entrenched in conflict worldwide but also as inspiration for individuals navigating their way out of profound darkness towards the light
In a collaborative effort, our non-profit organization, Meditation Without Borders, and Mary's organization, the Rwanda Women’s Network are joining forces to introduce Vedic Meditation to women in Rwanda. Together, we will host a four-day meditation retreat for women community leaders and changemakers, as well as going into the safe spaces to teach women who are victims of gender-based violence. For more information on this project or to contribute to this cause, please visit our page.
Show Notes:
2.18 Mary’s background
“Everything around us is about love. It´s about caring, it´s about welcoming people into the home. And it’s about giving yourself to others. Growing up feeling that way, it has accompanied me all my life all the way through.” Mary Balikungeri
6.30 All about family
9.00 Safe Spaces and the Journey of Women beyond the Genocide
“We came up with such an innovative idea of creating the safe spaces for women which allows the women to converge and eventually find each other; go through the process of healing. At the same time be able to rebuild the new communities, build the solidarity among themselves, and at the same time identify actual critical needs and beginning to plan their lives based on their priorities. And from that journey onwards we really have seen the lives of women transformed. Transformed in their own homes, taking leadership in their own communities. At the same time, also daring to take up leadership at the national level where we now see most of our women becoming women parliamentarians and even serving in the government.” Mary Balikungeri
11.50 Reconstructing the family – reconstructing the country
“The first cohort group of women started coming to the safe space. There were women who were looking sad. And the journey we took them through helped them to look inwardly and be able to think through on how to live in a better and a new Rwanda we were all yearning for.” Mary Balikungeri
14.00 The vision and journey of the women
“In putting the vision of what we are looking women to be for the future helped them also to accelerate and to get out of that bitterness, sadness; to really make them see themselves as women who are going to transform what has been impossible.” Mary Balikungeri
20.00 Emerging from the darkest darkness
26.00 Promoting gender equality through women empowerment
“We make sure that the women understood the power in herself.” Mary Balikungeri
30.00 Victimhood as a state of consciousness
32.00 Replicating this project in other countries
40.00 Othering
45.00 How to help
“We need to go through our self-healing. We do so much, and we forget ourselves.” Mary Balikungeri
52.00 Mary’s personal challenges and being a mother
“I think the whole in the line is to becoming a model mother that helps them also to see that your struggle was also for them. And I think the day I discovered that they saw that I felt I was at peace.” Mary Balikungeri
56.00 Generational Challenges
58.00 Meditation Without Borders in Rwanda and how to help
The world has been a witness to one of the deadliest conflicts in recent memory this fall with the Isreali/Palestinian conflict, and so many of us are feeling an urgency to help with no clear direction as to how.
In this episode, we interview our colleagues, David Lahav and Emily McCarthy, two Vedic Meditation teachers based in Colorado who have recently started an organization called Meditate For World Peace as a response to the current strife in Isreal and Gaza. Lahav, formerly an Isreali military officer, and McCarthy are looking to teach thousands of people in Isreal in the next couple of years Vedic Meditation as a way to cool the collective in the area.
We are very grateful to David and Emily for discussing this very sensitive topic with us as we discuss everything from the political minefield of the situation to how collective peace is established on the individual level of consciousness to the ripple healing effect of meditation.
If you are interested in supporting Meditate for World Peace, you learn more about their mission and donate to their cause via their website: https://www.meditateforworldpeace.org/
Show Notes:
Meditate for World Peace Notes
1.24 Mission: What is it that we can do to actually help the current situation, apart from being on social media and talking to people about it and wanting to do something.
“There is a big need to bring Vedic Meditation and teach many people in Israel to help individuals with the stress and grief that is happening. And also, me teaching many many people to create a collective effect that happens in the community, a coherence effect that’s happening when a larger percent of the population begins meditating.” David
3.00 How does a big change in a region happen?
4.00 Maharishi effect: 1% of the population meditating creates a change in a specific region.
5.30 Meditators feeling the effects of what is happening in the world
“When something is happening on the other side of the ocean, all the waves feel it.” Kristen
7.00 Meditation deexcites and organizes.
8.30 The land of Israel as a focal point of conscious awareness.
10.30 The world as a body – all the cells feel it. We want to go to the axe wound.
“No one is going to be safe if a conflict of this level is left unchecked.” Kristen
14.20 Political minefield
17.00 Ripple effect: Meditating for world peace is starting in Israel but it is not just about Israel.
“The mission is not about us. We have a technique that we know how to teach, that we know creates change and the first project is beginning in Israel.” Emily
19.10 We want the bad guy meditating (it doesn´t matter who it is).
“No matter what you believe, even if you think of Israel as the aggressor, they´re the bad guy in this whole scenario, well you want the bad guy meditating. You want their consciousness pulled. Or if you think the Palestinian´s are the bad guys. First of all, there is no bad guy in the Vedic view. It doesn´t matter what your stance is, this is going to help.” Kristen
20.26 Mission is teaching 1% of the population of Israel. In 2024 teaching 10,000 people.
21.23 Every $100 USD donated to the cause sponsors a meditation course for someone in Israel.
22.40
“Even for students in Israel who are not ready to talk about peace because there is so much emotion and feeling and trauma around this, then even for someone that´s not ready for that, it´s about healing on the individual layer. And all of the trauma that has occurred from the day-to-day life that is happening there and just healing yourself. We don’t even need to talk about peace and world peace if people aren’t ready for that right now. And that’s okay. Meditation is here to reduce anxiety and bring greater happiness.” Emily
23.30 Peace comes from the individual
24.00 Leaders represent their people
25.00 With meditation everyone becomes extended self
26.00 David in the military experiencing unity with the other side
“Our practice has the power to enact that, that experience of what is it like to be you. It really can be challenging to have experiences from the same level of consciousness from which we are creating the problem to begin with. And so, we introduce meditation, we begin to shift our state of consciousness and then the experience of what it is like to be another unfolds naturally and effortlessly. And if all of us were asking that question, more often, day to day, `what is it like to be you? ´ I feel like there would be a really powerful change in how we treat and view and see one another.” Emily
29.23 Masculine and Feminine energies
35.00 People living in flight or fight in Israel for decades
36.00 Life in Israel now
41.00 When we go off balance we crave things that take us further off balance
43.00 Meditation is a virtuous cycle
45.00 Stress and trauma
50.00 Meditation and community
We’re taught from when we are little to be ambitious in order to achieve what we want, but what if what we want is to strive for something that is already within us, enlightenment? In a teaching that expounds not looking to the future for happiness, where does something like ambition fit into such a philosophy? And is enlightenment envy a thing?
In this episode, Kristen and Isabel get personal about their own experience with feeling ambition in the spiritual sphere and how they have found ways of not letting it get in the way of their paths.
Show Notes:
1.30 Pitta dosha personality
5:00 Santosha
5.55 “Suffering is wanting a different experience than what you are having right now.” Kristen
6.30 Enlightenment impatience
7.00 Flower blooming process
7.41 “We want to have that destination in our mind while also realizing that there is a journey that’s happening. And that we don’t want to rush the journey. We want to have the full unfolding.” Kristen
8.20 Enlightenment envy
10.00 Vulnerability
10.50 Nature is never always in bloom
14.26 The trick is to feel sad without being sad
14.46 “At your core you are always fine, but you are still allowing yourself to feel humanity. It’s like being in the big ocean of self while simultaneously being in the wave of self. The wave of self, feeling sad and the ocean of self, the being, is always fine.” Kristen
17.00 It’s about the how
19.50 Status – “True status is something you just experience.” Kristen
24.20 Punya – Spiritual merit
27.15 Karma and Kriya
33.40 “To what extent are you enjoying and experiencing whatever point in the storyline you are in right now. It’s not the how it’s the what.” Kristen
37.00 The characters we play
39.00 Big Self goals
43.54 “Spiritual ambition - Once you get there, it won’t matter to you. The unfolding is happening with that. The river is moving, you don’t have to push it. You just have to listen and do the practice and do those spontaneous actions and watch the whole thing.” Kristen
Two years ago, we spoke with Tracee Stanley, founder of the Empowered Life Circle, about her book "Radiant Rest," and it was one of the most memorable interviews we’ve hosted on this podcast. We are honored to have her on again to talk about her new book, "The Luminous Self," which comes out in October. Tracee’s new book paints from a palette of her decades of study of the traditions of the Himalayan Masters and Sri Vidya Tantra as well as from personal stories that make the knowledge both practical and relatable.
In this episode, we get the hear Tracee tell some of these stories firsthand as well as hear her describe some of the practices she outlines in her book for reconnecting to our deepest selves. We discuss all the ways in which thinking of life as a sacred ritual infuses life with intention and purpose.
There are so many incredible gems of wisdom from Tracee in this episode. And for those who preorder her book at Shambhala.com before the launch date of October 9, you get 30% off with the code LUM30 as well as free entry into her book club with live group sessions, practices, Q&A and sacred community.
Show Notes:
1.15 Rituals
2.15 “If we want to think about life as a sacred ritual, if we want to be able to weave our practices and our devotion throughout our days. Then we have to become more intentional with the things that we do and why we do them. Because a ritual is really meant to mark a moment in time when you take a pause, you do something intentionally to create an effect or an opening for something new to emerge.” Tracee
7.45 Timeline practice
11.00 How The Luminous Self came about
14.27 “I am deeply listening to what needs to come through.” Tracee
16.50 Opening up the humanity
18.00 Sanskara : The moments we think hold us back propels us to our own growth
“The crack is where the light comes through. This idea of discomfort is the portal to your healing. And it’s sometimes the very thing we want to avoid. Whether it’s because we don’t have the support, or we don’t have the practices or we don’t have the trust or the faith that it’s even possible. And so, I really wanted people to be able to see through my lens that it absolutely is possible.” Tracee
19.30 The Yoga Sutras
25.00 Internal Practices
“This idea of internal practice is a strengthening of the remembering. Because we have so much beautiful memory from our spiritual lineages, our ancestor lineages that live in our DNA. When we are in a place of deep rest and deep listening that that remembering rises to the surface as well”. Tracee
27.00 The elements and our connection to them
“When we think about this idea of returning to our true nature, our true nature is not separate from nature. The more we are separate from it, the more we are separated from ourselves. As above, so below. What is in the macrocosm is in the microcosm, there is a universe inside of us. There is a sun, there is a moon.” Tracee
31.00 “There is not a reciprocal relationship with nature. And once we are in that reciprocity with nature, that is when the healing starts to begin.” Tracee
31.30 The connected roots exercise
Ted Talk: Suzanne Simard
36.00 Yoga is not a feel-good practice – it’s a face your truth practice
“When I first started practicing yoga it was like -oh I want to feel better, I want to look better, I want to be stronger, I want to be more peaceful and then when I started reading that first translation of the yoga sutras, it was like oh there’s a place in my that is beyond all sorrow. Then that means there is sorrow that I am not acknowledging, I am bypassing the sorrow so that I can be in the feel-good.” Tracee
37.00 Bhakti – Devotion
39.00 Upgrades in consciousness
“I needed that upgrade. It was excruciatingly painful until I realized what was happening. And then it was like -oh, let me be in the lila, and let me watch and let me experience. And it took on a completely different turn.” Tracee
Discount Code: 30% off the book if you preorder at Shambhala.com with the code LUM30
You deserve the best.
Never feel unworthy or
not justified in having the best.
I tell you, this is your heritage;
but, you have to accept it.
You have to expect it;
you have to claim it.
To do so is not demanding too much.
These powerful words come from Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, better known as Guru Deva, the master of our tradition from which Vedic Meditation comes. This is one of his most quoted phrases, but also, in the current climate of “manifest your dreams” gurus, it one of his most misunderstood. What does it mean to deserve the best? What is the best? Are some more worthy of the best than others?
In this episode, Isabel and Kristen go line by line to unpack the hidden meaning behind the words. They unravel some of the misconceptions around the phrase “deserving power” or punya and reveal how the best is in reach of everyone.
Episode Notes:
2.46 Deserving Power
“Your deserving power is to what extent are you aware of your own true identity.” Kristen
3.20 Punya
5.25 “What is the best? The best is a state of consciousness.” Kristen
11.00 Expectations
“We expect what we are used to. This is where meditation comes in. Because when we start meditating, and innocently let our awareness go to that layer, that consciousness state comes spontaneously from that, so we start living the best and then the expectation for the best comes from the fact that we already have it.” Kristen
12.30 Support of Nature – the support of yourself
16.00 Releasing attachments to specific outcomes and timings
18.00 Self-doubt and suffering
20.30 Who are you?
“If your concept of self is little you you´re are going to struggle with this, but if you are the universe, if that is your status there is no hesitance with that at all.” Kristen
25.35 Having the best and not feeling the best.
26.00 Projectors of our state of consciousness
29.00 Millionaires and happiness
33.00 Claiming the best
“To me the claiming is easier when I think of myself as a servant (of the universe).” Kristen
33.45 Heritage
“Heritage implies this is what youve had before. This is your heritage because, at a certain layer, you are already here, you already have it, you are already living it.” Kristen
34.55 Heritage – Inheritance – it´s coming your way.
36.00 Acceptance
“To the extent you perceive everything as a gift, you accept everything. There is no rejecting of what is, this is where suffering comes.” Kristen
39.00 Suka Deva story
43.00 Self-doubt in the feminine consciousness
45.00 Joy is the baseline
46.00 Moving to the best
47.00 Pride in misery
53.00 Acting when there is a better deal
54.00 “You get what you expect, and you get what you accept.” Kristen
55.00 Hanuman
56.00 “Ask yourself to what degree does this feel frictionless inside.” Kristen
58.00 Exploring what the best is for you
As teachers of meditation, we’re always talking about the journey inward. But what about the outer journey, is there a spiritual value in traveling the world?
In this episode, we have a delightful conversation with fellow Vedic Meditation teacher and avid world traveler Théo Burkhardt about why we yearn to see far off lands and how the exploration of the globe is also an expansion for the soul. Theo brings his knowledge of Vedic Astrology (Jyotish) into the discussion as well as fascinating anecdotes of his many adventures to the remotest of places.
If you’d like to travel with Théo (he leads retreats in Bali and expeditions in India) or if you’d like to learn meditation from him, you can reach him at theoburkhardt.com. You can also hear more of his relatable brand of sharing Vedic knowledge on his podcast Slouching Towards Enlightenment.
Show Notes:
3.20 Traveling and teaching
5.40 Nivar tatvam
7.40 “The body wants to get in on the action of what it is experiencing inside.” Theo
8.15 “You want to take this new consciousness around. You want to take the show on the road.” Theo
9.50 The Comfort Zone “The safest place is being on the cusp of the unknown.” Kristen
11.30 Jyotish and Travel
16.00 Equanimity and traveling
19.00 Adaptability
20.00 Everywhere is home
22.00 Homogenizing
26.00 Pilgrimage to India
29.00 Finding unity in difference
30.00 Varanasi
31.50 Naga babas
37.00 Breakthrough cosmic experiences while traveling
42.00 The importance of a teacher
45.00 No cultural appropriation
46.00 The call to teach in the west
47.00 Preservation of knowledge
49.00 Giving the student what they need
50.00 Dharma
52.00 Surprises and people
56.00 Knowing ourselves without our surroundings
57.00 Plot vs Story
58.00 The elixir
