Category: Spirituality

A.H. Almaas: Love of the Truth, Without End

Tami Simon speaks with A.H. Almaas. A.H. Almaas is the pen name for Hameed Ali, best known as the originator of the wisdom path known as the Diamond Approach. He is the author of 14 books, including The Unfolding Now, and his works with Sounds True include the audio learning course The Diamond Approach and Realization Unfolds, a dialogue with Adyashanti. In this episode, Tami speaks with Hameed about some of the distinct characteristics of the Diamond Approach as an approach to investigating both reality and oneself as a path to liberation, why he makes no distinction between a psychological and spiritual approach to inquiry, and how the love of truth drives the process of realization. (73 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.

Many Voices, One Journey – a free eBook

In the spirit of the rich tradition of contemplative reading, Sounds True‘s authors and editors have compiled these essential written selections for your illumination, enjoyment, and inspiration. Many Voices, One Journey, a free eBook, features the writings of Jon Kabat-Zinn, Adyashanti, Sharon Salzberg, Gangaji, Jack Kornfield, and others. We hope you find in their words helpful guidance for your own journey.

Many Voices, One Journey includes:

1. “Adjusting Your Default Setting” from Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn
2. “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” from Living Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
3. “Grace Is All Around Us” from Falling into Grace by Adyashanti
4. “Surrender Only into Love” from Finding God Through Sex by David Deida
5. “The Longing to Become Who We Are” from Touching Enlightenment by Reginald A. Ray
6. “What Is Your Story?” from The Diamond in Your Pocket by Gangaji
7. “The Healing Power of Self-Compassion” from The Kindness Handbook by Sharon Salzberg
8. “The Five Stages of Radical Forgiveness” from Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping
9. “On Contemplation” from Choosing to Love the World by Thomas Merton
10. “The Wisdom of Our Difficulties” from A Lamp in the Darkness by Jack Kornfield
11. “Entering the Cave of the Heart” from Meditation for the Love of It by Sally Kempton
12. “A Source Beyond Ego, a Grace Beyond Luck” from Life Visioning by Michael Bernard Beckwith

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The Future of Spirituality – audio sessions with...

Have you had a chance to listen to The Future of Spirituality with Ken Wilber and Tami Simon? These historic audio sessions have been edited down into around 6.5 hours and feature a fascinating conversation regarding the evolution of spirituality, the ever-evolving ways the formless is pouring through form, and the always, already awakened nature of consciousness. The sessions are available in CDs or as digital downloads.

If the Buddha, Saint Teresa, or an enlightened shaman walked into the room today, would they find themselves in need of some serious spiritual catching up? The surprising answer, says Ken Wilber, is yes.

Integral evolutionary thinkers today are seeing a burst of accelerating shifts in human consciousness: in our emotional and cognitive lines of intelligence, our creative and moral capacities, our sense of self, and more. And as this landscape of knowledge grows, so does the potential of our own spiritual lives-in ways that even meditation and other inward practices alone cannot provide.

What is the evidence for this upward spiral in our spiritual intelligence? And if it’s true, how do we experience these shifts directly, within ourselves? The Future of Spirituality explores these emerging possibilities to help you discover their profound influences in your own life and in the world around you.

“The enlightened persons of today and of 2,000 years ago are equally free,” says Wilber. But now, for the first time in human history, we have the potential for a far more expansive, fuller spiritual experience than ever before possible. This is the territory that you are invited to explore, with The Future of Spirituality.

Highlights:

“Spirit wants to evolve”-the core of the integral vision
Emptiness and the evolutionary unfolding of form
How science and Western psychology are transforming spirituality
On freedom and fullness
Waking up and growing up, two distinct and essential processes
If the Divine is formless and infinite, who needs levels and hierarchies?
On reincarnation and life after death
The shape of things to come-emerging stages of consciousness ahead

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Tending the Heart Fire

Tami Simon speaks with Shiva Rea, a world-renowned teacher of vinyasa flow yoga and the founder of Samudra Global School for Living Yoga. Shiva has created many video, audio, and music programs with Sounds True, and most recently released her much-anticipated first book, Tending the Heart Fire: Living in Flow with the Pulse of Life. In this episode, Tami speaks with Shiva about what it means to be a “fire-keeper;” the power of attuning ourselves to the natural cycles of the sun, moon, and seasons; how we can reconnect to the pulse of life even in our modern world; and an on-the-spot practice we can do to tend to the fire of our own heart. (66 minutes)

The Practice of the Imagination, with David Whyte

In this short video, poet David Whyte takes listeners on a journey into the nature and practice of the imagination. For David, while we ordinarily think of the imagination as the ability to think up new things, the poetic tradition sees the imagination as the ability in each of us to form a central image which provides a container for our own belonging. As we explore this image – and as it unfolds within us – we come to discover our innate aliveness.

David is the author of three inspiring audio learning programs with Sounds True:

When the Heart Breaks: A Journey Through Requited and Unrequited Love

Clear Mind, Wild Heart: Finding Clarity and Courage through Poetry

What to Remember When Waking: The Disciplines of an Everyday Life

Enjoy this short video with David on the practice of the imagination.

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