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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 Balikungeri14.00 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
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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 Notes1.24 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 balance43.00 Meditation is a virtuous cycle
45.00 Stress and trauma
50.00 Meditation and community
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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 personality5:00 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
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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 practice11.00 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 Sutras25.00 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
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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.” Kristen39.00 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
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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
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This is a very special episode where we honor the memory of Nicole LeVeck McCracken who dropped her body this past September after a long battle with cancer. Nicole was a Vedic meditator on her way to becoming a teacher of the practice she loved so dearly as well as an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor who had passed the steps to hundreds of people looking for a path to recovery.
In this conversation, Kristen shares her experience of being part of Nicole’s support team in her final months and what it was like to witness someone in such a high state of awareness move towards her end-of-life transition. Isabel and Kristen discuss the Vedic perspective on death in between light-hearted memories. We hope you listen to this episode and feel a touch of the joy and upliftment Nicole brought to everyone she knew.
Show notes:
3.40 A beautiful death – the relationship we have with death
6.00 The Purest Love – student/teacher relationship
8.00 Cognition sand answers
10.00 The Luckiest Person in the world – being grounded in being
11.30 “All of it is for evolution. And especially the hard times.” Kristen
12.00 Nicole´s life
14.00 AA practice of surrendering
16.45 “She was so divine in one way and made you love her. And she was also so human.” Kristen
19.20 People´s different reactions to a person dying
21.00 The role of getting her back into the big
22.40 How someone in high consciousness deals with death
27.00 “That´s the thing about people in that state, they don´t even have to say anything. Just their being is enough to uplift everybody.” Kristen
27.20 “As she got closer, her enlightenment was getting exponential. You could feel it just going higher and higher and higher.”Kristen
28.00 Story of the parking lot in the hospital and teaching steps of AA
30.40 Devotion
31.18 “Devotion and I just put her picture under it. That is who to me embodies it. And devotion is that sacrificing, that honoring of something bigger than yourself. And she did it so effortlessly. It made it so easy to be devoted to her. She was devoted to anyone who had need.” Kristen
34.00 The real pranayama and the real yoga – life
36.00 She was always a teacher
36.30 A true influence – the upliftment
40.00 Thom Knoles and his goodbye to Nicole
48.00 The circle on the other side waiting for ger
48.40 It´s not an ending, it´s a continuum – another portal
50.55 “It´s also a gift to get to love somebody that much.” Kristen
51.00 The gift of grief
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It’s no secret that our lack of awareness as a society is doing great harm to the planet as well as all of its creatures. In this episode, we are thrilled to speak with one of those who are holding back the tide of destruction, Rachel Hogan, director of Ape Action Africa. Rachel has devoted the last 20 years to primate conservation in Cameroon and is well known for her work in the rescue and rehabilitation of gorillas and chimpanzees, as well as fighting the illegal bush meat trade in West Africa.
We are honored to hear first-hand about how Rachel started in this field (her three month trip turned into two decades!) and all about her work to raise the awareness of the local people in order to protect these majestic residents of the African jungles. She is also a daily meditator, and shares about how her practice has helped her manage such a demanding role.
Listening to her story, and all about how intelligent and aware the primates are she works with, we are humbled by the beauty of these animals as well as the efforts made to save them.
Click here if you would like to learn more about Ape Action Africa, donate to their cause or if you would like to "Adopt an Ape"
Show Notes:5.30 Pushing back on low consciousness.
7.36 Concentrating on the women of the community
8.28 New Generations are the ones spreading the message
14.07 “When I look back then, it really just feels it was all a learning process… When I look
back when I was 25, 26 and I would be dealing with these issues at the time it was like ´oh
gosh, how do we get past these issues´, and it was the worst thing ever. And then looking
back now, and especially since I´ve started meditation as well, I can really see the reason
behind those challenges and how that helped move the project forward. And how we all
developed.” Rachel
17.30 Benefits of meditation for Rachel
23.30 Rachel´s Journey
26.39 “It really does feel like the path was already set. And it´s home now. It feels like I’m
where I’m meant to be and where I want to be. And I make that choice every day, I make
that conscious choice. I am here today.” Rachel
28.00 Consciousness of the apes themselves
29.00 The peacemaker
30.50 Awareness of others and themselves
32.30 Gorillas are the big thinkers, big meditators
33.00 Chimps wear their hearts in their sleeves
34.21 “Even now, even after 21 years, they´ll do something that will completely blow my
mind. And just when they look at you, you can just see, you can just feel it, it´s incredible it
really is. They´re like us, but with a lot more hair.” Rachel
35.46 They are all different, with their own unique soul.
36.00 Personalities and introductions
40.00 “There are times when there will be a little bit of doubt, a little bit of
discouragement but it’s just not enough to stop. It’s not a phenomenon, it’s not on the list.
We are doing something here; we need to keep moving forward and that’s what we do. It’s
about whether you want to be part of the solution or part of the problem. And I think
that’s how we all feel in the Ape Action Africa team.” Rachel
42.00 Working with the government
44.40 Releasing apes back into the wild
45.12 “One of the best feelings ever is when you see a chimp back with other chimps, or a
gorilla with other gorillas. And the family that they lost; they have a new family. It really is
incredible. It shouldn´t be us looking after them. They should be with their own kind.”
Rachel
50.20 The future of Ape Action Africa –forest and wildlife protection.
51.00 Deforestation and the effects
52.15 How to help Ape Action Africa -
Meditation is all about letting the light in. In this episode, we speak with Joh Jarvis, Vedic Meditation teacher and founder of the Light Inside, who is on a mission to let the light find its way into prisons and jails. Joh talks about what it was like teaching men in maximum security at Rikers Island Correctional Center in New York as well as women prisoners in Philidephia who were recently released.
Beyond her story, we go into how prison is a metaphor for the binding effect of karma we all experience and how healing those behind bars can go a long way towards healing the collective at large.
We hope you are as inspired as we were to hear Joh so humbly describe her work of going straight into the heart of darkness to bring the light where it is most needed.
If you are interested in Joh’s work, you can email her here: [email protected]
Or go sign up for her mailing list on her website: www.the-lightinside.com (live but under construction)
Show Notes:.40 Intro to Joh Jarvis
2.40 making a mistake you have to pay for all your life with no rehabilitation
8.00 Hiding our putting away our own mistakes is similar to what society does with people in prisons. Out of sight out of mind. Healing within, healing outside.
8.43 the prison system as a reflection of the consciousness of society
9.06 The Light Inside Organization
9.50 Correction officers are also affected by the system
12.40 Teaching in Riker´s island
13.00 Prisons vs Jails
14.40 Future plans to measure results
17.30 Seeing prisoners beyond being just prisoners
19.30 Hold both states with prisoners –Gyana Kanda and also Karma Kanda
20.28 Not feeling in danger in a prison while teaching
26.30 Closing eyes in meditation for prisoners
30.40 Desire is where there is the need to teach
31.15 Prisons are metaphors of what we all experience – karma – binding effect.
32.00 Outside bounds are nothing compared to the inside ones
32.20 Prisons can fast-track you to evolution – not as many distractions
32.55 Nelson Mandela´s self-realization in prison
33.00 “Let´s make as many of us available as possible to be available to those people who, once it’s explained to them, experience what we teach.” Joh Jarvis
33.30 Covid- opportunity to go inward
40.00 Trying to teach correction officers
41.20 Raising the collective consciousness – finding victims, finding the ones helping the victims and then the ones causing the suffering (who are also victims).
42.30 Uplifting the farthest from society and from there uplift the whole thing
43.36 The keys to the kingdom – the best meditation that you could learn
44.20 “We are giving you the best, and in a way, I think they deserve it. I think anybody who gets in front of a meditation teacher and takes that opportunity inherently deserves it.” Joh Jarvis
44.46 “They very fact that I´ve got the desire, you got the desire, says “oh this should be done”. It’s coming from the divine, this idea that people do this and therefore there is a reason for that and it’s for the collective evolution. So yes, I think prisons for that reason are going to be a powerful impact on the wider collective, the teaching in prisons.” Joh Jarvis
45.20 The point of enough
47.00 Jarvis Jay Masters – inmate who does mindfulness in San Quentin State Prison
48.59 The Dhamma Brothers in Alabama State Prison (there is a film about this)
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There is one constant in the human condition and that is the desire for growth. However, we all have these different issues, habits, or patterns that seem to hold us back and keep us from living life to the fullest. But what if it were those very traits that held the secret to our evolution?
In this episode, Isabel and Kristen explore this revolutionary perspective and how to look at your setbacks as footholds for expansion. They delve into their own personal challenges and how they enriched the storyline of their own lives and shed light on how to look at your life with a renewed sense of empowerment.
Show Notes:
.25 “What we think in our lives what is holding us back is actually what is propelling us forward. Your weakness is in fact your superpower. They are one in the same.” Kristen
3.48 We all have an Achilles heel that shapes us
5.30 Indoctrination of having to be perfect to live our “best” life
6.30 “The things that we struggle with are the footholds for our growth.” Kristen
7.40 We are looking for transformation
8.20 Idiosyncrasies
10.20 Setbacks are for our progress
12.00 How the dots in our life connect
15.30 Leaders with experience
17.00 Spectrum of weaknesses in teachers
22.00 Learn the lessons as they come – no repeats
27.00 Binding of Karma happens within you – the viewpoint
28.00 “Big perspective makes everything okay. Suffering always come from a very narrow perspective. And narrow perspective comes from being in the wave of self.” Kristen
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Boundaries are a fascinating subject because according to the Vedas, they don’t really exist. When we want to manifest, boundaries are created, when we want to unify, boundaries are dissolved. What that looks like in our own lives is setting healthy personal boundaries while at the same time dissolving all boundaries in meditation as well as witnessing the dissolving of boundaries between civilizations, races and genders.
In this episode, Isabel and Kristen explore this very nuanced topic while giving concrete advice on how to master the creation and dissolution of boundaries in your own life.Show notes:
1.25 Soma Bandits
3.00 Setting boundaries to actually help others
3.40 “Boundaries are always important, sometimes we want to create them, sometimes we want to dissolve them.” Kristen
4.00 Women and boundaries – a theme in feminine consciousness of the feminine being invaded of boundaries being ignored.
5.28 Myth of Ganesh being created
7.21 Protecting yourself from yourself – realizing we CAN have boundaries
14:00 “When you actually set boundaries it´s like that respect you have for yourself for setting them gets reflected back.” Kristen
15.00 In meditation we obliterate boundaries
18.00 “The difference is in the direction of manifestation, if you want to go that way, direction of diversity, manifestation it´s is more and more boundaries. And if you want to move towards unity you want to dissolve boundaries.”Kristen
19.00 Sexuality, Races, Countries in the dissolution of boundaries
21.00 The illusion of boundaries
23.20 “Love is a dissolving of boundaries.” Kristen
26.00 NIVAR TATVAM: go where you are not. Make boundaries of dissolve them based on where you are at a time
27.00 There is no right or wrong – what is right for who at what time.
35.40 The bigger YES
“You are not saying no, you are saying yes to something else.” Isabel -
There are some that proudly proclaim they are on a spiritual path while others want nothing to do with it. However, spirituality is not something you can be "into" or not, everything is spirit. We are all devoted something, the question is what do you worship? What is getting the bulk of your attention? Do you worship your problems by thinking of them constantly? Do you worship your stress by serving it through coping behaviors?
In this episode, Isabel and Kristen discuss how we're all evolving on different paths to greater self realization and that through meditation, you can effortlessly redirect the flow of your attention away from troubles and surface desires to your highest self.
Show Notes:
2:00 We are all on a spiritual path (some actively – some not)5:00 “A lot of times people´s belief systems, they may be a very spiritual person, but they are not into `spirituality´ as a subject matter but they are doing things that are full of spirit.” Kristen
7:00 Even our obstacles guide us
8.48: Soma and Devotion
9:47 “As meditators, our soma flow is actually being redirected inward… it flips around and goes back to its source. Meditation is an act of devotion going back to that one indivisible whole consciousness.” Kristen
11:00 Seeing meditation as an act of devotion
13.40: We are all serving something
“Every bit of consciousness is serving something else in some way and that service is that devotion and soma flow.” Kristen14.00 “My body serves me, and I serve the higher self.” Kristen
14.30 When we are stressed, we serve the stress
16.40 Ask ourselves where our soma is flowing to?
19:00 Abhyanga massage as an act of serving our body
21:00 Inner bashing of our form
26:00 What does devotion feels like that?
29:00 Surrendering is not non-action
30:00 The appreciation of others
34:00 The beginning of the end: turning inward
37:00 Becoming devoted to life itself
42:00 Getting higher quality soma
45:00 Non active role in your spiritual path
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Every day the news seems to get worse and worse. The sense of urgency builds and yet for most of us ordinary people who live thousands of miles away, we feel helpless.
In this episode, Kristen and Isabel confront their own moments of helplessness in the face of global tragedy and discuss how meditation itself works to cool the collective. Listen in to hear how to overcome feelings of helplessness and explore real tangible ways to contribute to not only the easing of suffering in Ukraine, but everywhere.
4.30 Cooling the collective through meditation
5.30 Leading through a grounded place
6.00 Leading through fear vs leading through happiness
7.30 Yogastha Kuru Karmani
9.00 Feminine Warriors – “make your enemies your disciples – it´s a unity action.” Kristen
11.00 Micro and Macro – fractalization of the oneness
12.00 All problems are consciousness problems
16.00 It´s okay to be angry – all feelings are valid.
24.00 Dharma – universality through individuality contacting all other individualities
28.45 “In times of great difficulty is where heroes come forth.” Kristen
30.00 The power of group meditations
34.00 Cleaning the collective stress
35.00 Fear comes from “othering”
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So much of what we want out of life does not require more effort and struggle, we simply have to stop resisting and allow what already is. As they say, “what we resist persists.” But how do we learn to let go and simply relax and enjoy?
In this episode, Kristen and Isabel examine the root causes for our resistance and define how the inner resistance that is keeping us down differs from pain, aversion and fighting oppression. With their typical levity, they break down the steps for releasing our grip in order to realize the liberation that is already flowing underneath.
Show notes:
1.08 Finding liberty and liberation
2.46 “Real liberation is actually an inner experience. It´s not anything you can be given from the outside.” Kristen
4.15 it´s not about gaining it´s about stop resisting
5.00 Stress release in meditation
8.30 Difference between pain and suffering
“Suffering is the resistance to the pain.” Kristen14.30 Witnessing yourself – observe and allow
16.30 Big consciousness is neutral, interested in everything but neutral
17.30 Embracing change
17.40 “What we are resisting are the areas where we need to grow and where change needs to happen.” Isabel
20.30 Nature pushing us harder when we resist
21.30 Difference between resisting and aversion
24.00 Difference between resistance and resisting oppression (fighting for a cause)
25.25 AA program – surrendering to a higher power
30.00 Does the universe have your back?
34.30 Getting in the witness state allows us to find joy and comedy in life
41.40 Don´t resist resisting
45.20 Others resisting you
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If you had to pick a word to describe how you want to experience this new year, what would it be?
2022 seems to have us all cautiously optimistic. While we’re all still licking our wounds from the last two years, we also seem to be eager to make the most of what’s to come, hence New Year’s resolutions.
However, instead of making resolutions which tend to be based on external goals with a high likelihood of not coming to pass, in this episode, Isabel and Kristen discuss alternative practices that center on how you’re experiencing over what you’re experiencing this year. While discussing their own hopes for what the coming months will bring, they come up what they call New Year’s orientations, ways of orienting your mind to create a trajectory of positive growth this year. Whether it's picking a theme word for the year or a color, you'll hopefully come away from this episode with a bit more clarity and purpose.
By the way, our words were decisive, surrender, love and enjoy. We couldn’t pick just one.
1.40 New Year makes us look at both directions, looking behind and ahead of you.
4.00 Transitions are signs of tremendous growth.
5.30 Specific and outward oriented New Year´s Resolutions
6.25 Not setting goals but instead goals of HOW you want to experience this year
7.27 “The motivation behind most of the outward resolutions are actually inward.” Kristen
8.30 What are the real motivations behind our resolutions?
10.00 “If we really think to ourselves, how is it that I want to feel? What is it that I want to experience? How do I want to experience this year? Then it reorients the priorities.” Kristen
11.00 What does everyone really want? The effects of shifting our consciousness state
12.26 What does happiness look life for you, and does it look like anything?
“Usually the picture (of happiness) involves some misplaced identity.” Kristen13.30 Small self-oriented resolutions.
15.00 Irony of having things fall into place when we no longer care about having them
16.50 Coming up with a word as a theme for the year
19.43 “When you´ve gone through something really hard and really heavy it breaks you open, and it created that surrender.” Kristen
21.00 Being decisive
23.00 Our word or color as an orientation device
27.00 Picking out specific new year´s resolutions doesn´t allow ourselves to see how we might grow and see what might be relevant when we keep growing.
33.00 “When we change of our own fruition, we don´t need that push from nature so much.” Kristen
33.30 Changes coming by themselves when we meditate
34.15 “With meditation we become so used to change that not only are we okay with when change happens to us, but we actually become the agents of change.” Kristen
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There’s that famous quote by Ram Dass, “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” It is an almost universal condition that spending time with family at the holidays can be triggering like little else, even for avid meditators.
In this episode, Isabel and Kristen explore their own journeys with relating to their families and how they handle walking into family gatherings which they describe as “a true testing ground for your consciousness state.” So, before you go venturing back home and unpack all the emotional baggage that goes along with that, we hope this broadcast puts things in a higher perspective for an (almost) drama-less holiday season.
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These past couple years, it could be argued that loneliness is like a second epidemic. And with the holidays coming up, feelings of isolation are intensified. But being alone does not necessarily cause loneliness.
In this episode, Isabel and Kristen look at the line between loneliness and solitude from many angles. They look at how stress causes a sense of isolation and how even there can be a temporary phase in our meditation practice where we feel disconnected from people with whom we used to feel aligned. We invite you to listen and learn how to turn from feeling alone to “all One.”
1.15 loneliness and solitude are the same word in spanish (no difference)
1.40 “Solitude is being on your own and loneliness is feeling on your own”. Kristen
1.50 Loneliness while being with others
2.05 “You can be in solitude but not feel alone.” Kristen
3.20 “The higher your state of consciousness the greater capacity you have to feel not alone when you are alone. Your self is no longer bound but the wave of the self, your little individual body but your self goes everywhere, it is everywhere. How this is experiences is it doesn´t feel like you are alone.” Kristen
4.06 “Our practice is a practice of solitude, in the sense that we do it alone. Even if we do it in a group setting or we have a group meditation, its a practice where we go within. And so nobody can go within with us, so we go within and we have our practice of solitude. But it opens the door to connection.” Isabel
4.33 “To experience oneness and connection you have to be able to go inward by yourself and learn to be with yourself.” Kristen
4.40 Cellphone have made this worse- stressed people need distraction
6.06 Loneliness as a meditator – disconnection with the people you used to feel connection with
7.09 “Feeling lonely is when you no longer feel connected.” Isabel
7.30 Swimming analogy – unity points are deeper as a meditator
8.20 Feeling unity with people who you wouldn´t feel unity with
9.22 “It´s not just with other human beings that we connect.” Kristen
9.38 Yogis find reciprocation with nature itself
10.00 Right of passage
10.32 “There is a point (in our practice) where we feel disconnected from people we used to feel connected with just because we don´t share the same values that once upon a time we could´ve shared but once you kind of get through that it´s like the first little openings of growing in consciousness. But once you grow enough in consciousness you´ll see that you can now relate to everyone.” Isabel
12.00 Cosmic Consciousness
13.00 Loneliness and CC blues
15.30 Artists in solitude to create art – moments of solitude create deep connection to create their art
17.00 Compassion to others – what you used to push away from can be a unity point
18.00 “Stress makes us feel incredibly alone. Stress pushes us into the wave of self, into that isolated consciousness. And that´s part of what causes the fear. Fear is a sense o otherness, that things are other. That is how we have fear, that something is other than me and so I´m afraid of it. When our extended self extends to everything nothing is other so nothing makes you afraid.” Kristen
19.20 Loneliness as the root as damage
“If we can feel less alone which requires that othering to hurt someone, if we could feel less alone, which requires us to feel unity with everything else makes you incapable of hurting something.” Kristen
20.10 Level of loneliness is self sabotage
22.10 Dharma - Becoming a point of contact to uplift them
23.07 “Someone being in your event horizon will uplift them, you will become that point of contact, that dharma, you are living in dharma, living in that contact with that field for the benefit of everyone you come in contact with. The consciousness of creation evens itself out. We are able to uplift others and keep the world from feeling lonely.” Kristen
24.00 Finding the lonely pockets
“We are already not alone, it´s a feeling.” Kristen
24.44 Going through tough things alone makes us feel lonely. Connecting through vulnerability
“How does this bad experience help me uplift others?” Isabel
26.00 There is nothing under the sun that we are experiencing on our own
26.37 Memes as relatability points
27.23 Power of comedy to connect to humanity
“Comedians are very vedic. What they do is they observe life, they observe the patterns of life that we do and they tell it in such a way that it makes us not feel alone. That is what is so funny because the very human aspects of our consciousness that´s what they put into play.” Isabel
28.00 Unity through laughter
28.30 We need meditation to feel grounded over and over again
29.00 In meditation things no longer seem to be random
“The more we meditate and experience everything as extended self it feels like just one big thing moving forward as oppose to all these disjointed pieces. So when something happens it doesn´t feel meaningless. Which in a way that meaning that comes with that feeling of oneness keeps you from feeling lonely and that these things are just happening to you.” Kristen
31.31 When something big happens there is a big tranformation coming
33.10 Solitude and loneliness during Covid
32.15 Taking disconection and making it a connection
34.00 Relationships and fullfillment
36.40 The point of relationships
41.00 Being that point of contact
42.00 As a meditator there is no more waiting
“Its not waiting when you´re a meditator because wherever you are you are. There is no waiting for some other experience that you wish you were having, Yo can sit on your own and you´ll be fine. I´m not waiting for this relief fromthis experiencing that I am having now.” Kristen
42.00 People needing to distract themselves
44.00 Time is subjective
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There are those among us who are shining light in the darkest of dark places. In this episode, we speak with Saskia Niño de Rivera, who is basically a one-woman revolution to reform the Mexican penal system. Through her organization, Reinserta, Saskia works with kidnappers, incarcerated mothers and children brought up in prison as well as teenagers released from prison who need extra support among others.
After experiencing a family member’s kidnapping, Saskia at a very young age began questioning what happens in someone’s life to make them commit violence. That early recognition of criminals as human beings has evolved into her work that looks to improve from the inside out an institution that keeps people caught in a cycle of crime.
Listening to her story, we were in awe at not only how much Saskia has done in her short lifetime to make a real difference in what many would see as an impossible system to change, but also how she looks to create change through igniting compassion.
00.35 Who is Saskia?2.32 “Basically she is a one woman revolution changing the entire mexican penal system” Kristen
3.20 “Mexicans are very much in contact with the violence in their country.” Saskia
4.00 “The different events of my life have definitely formed me and helped me to understand life in a different manner. I think the key is having the humility to look at the opportunities that you are confronted with on a day by day basis as opportunities. And once you fill with narcisism you don´t get to see those opportunites.” Saskia
5.00 Speaking from privilege, not just economically
6.10 Different type of realities that Mexico has.
6.45 Kidnapping story
7.20 Sunday is a family day for everyone
“I started to see a pattern where the phone didn´t ring on Sundays. And I remember the third Sunday that it didn´t ring. I started to question myself, ´why aren´t the kidnappers calling on Sundays? What happens on Sundays that the kindappers don´t call on Sundays?´ And it was really interesting because Sunday is a family day. It´s a day you go to church. It´s a day you have family over in your house. It´s day of rest. Its a day of, in the catholic religion, which most mexicans have. It was interesting because it was the first ´aha moment´, if we can say if that way of, these people are not monsters that have two heads and six arms. They´re people just like any of us and the first reflextion was, ´What did these people go through in their life in order to think that they can take the life of someone in their hands and exchange it for money?´” Saskia8.40 Profiling kidnppers in Mexico.
“If something I know for sure is that we are co-responsible for the country that we have. And if we don´t think that the violence and the injustice in our country is that, then we are in a huge error. It is very easy to say them, but we don´t say us. From a perspective on, what have we done to really stop the violence and to create equal opportunities?” Saskia
9.50 “There has to be justice. But if we want to talk about prevention, if we want to talk about stopping the violence then we really have to think of justice and criminal justice from a different perspective and I think that is what we are trying to do.” Saskia
10.30 Work is based on empathy
11.10 Does violence equal crime?
11.40 Growing up in violent environment and normalizing crime
12.20 “These kids were recruited to kill by the age of 8, 9 and 10 years of age. My biggest reflextion on this has to do with if you have and eight year old kid that is commiting a crime and has a gun in his hand he is everything but guilty. There is a society around him that is completely guilty.” Saskia
12.53 “In general, the violence that we live, and not only in Mexico but in many parts of the world, is seen from a punitive kind of glass. ´Once you commit the crime I am going to punish you, but whatever happens to you before is not my problem.´I think that is where we really have to make a reflextion on. It that the way to really stop the violence? Especially with your children.” Saskia
16.50 What is Reinserta?
21.30 Does death penalty really create prevention?
22.40 Stop talking about the others and start talking about us
“The segregation of skin color, what kind of money you have in the bank, where you were born, how you speak, all these segregations and discriminations just separate us. When truth be told we are all looking at the world from a very alike point of view. We all want to live in a world where peace prevails. But if we don´t unify and we don´t understand that it is our responsibility and not someone else´s responsibility.” Saskia
24.08 Success is based on how many people you help and not how much money you make
25.30 What happens to one happens to everyone. Live it as if it happened to you.
28.00 “If we don´t feel offended by the fact that someone is going through that as if we were going through that ourselves then we lack of compassion. And if we lack of compassion there is no way, no way, we are going to strive for a better tomorrow.” Saskia
29.00 Mothers having their children in prison
30.00 Gender equality has affected the number of women in prison
30.45 Human rights vs security in prison (Mexico vs USA prison systems)
32.00 Reinserta creating non-violent spaces for children in prison and being released at 3 years old
33.00 Seperation of mothers and their children
35.09 “You can talk about a woman being a criminal. For you its a criminal, to someone its their mother.”
35.20 Children released and their relationship with their parents who are still in prison
37.00 Tackling the problem from all angles. It all comes from children being exposed to systemized violence in your person.
38.00 Empowering the people to take on the role of helping others
39.00 Why children form violent backgrounds talk about their crimes with pride
39.54 “Working in the halfway house with these kids has been really interesting because when you ask them, ´yeah okay you are a super super good kidnapper at age 14, okay let´s get that out of the way. What else are you?´And when you question them on that it´s like Ì´m no one, literally I´m noone and the world hates because of what I´ve done and since I´ve been born I was taught to do this and this is who I am. And it´s like no, that´s not who you are, its what you were taught but you are so much more.” Saskia
40.00 Becoming something more than what they were taught to be
42.00 Humanizing people inside and outside of the system
43.00 Tribe story- when someone harms someone else its because they are harmed
45.30 Changing as a mother
“I found a reason that is bigger than any other reason to do what I do.” Saskia
47.00 Mothering in her job and mothering at home
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When we become a mother, we take on an ancient role that extends far beyond simply feeding and clothing our children. In this episode, we speak with our good friend and colleague Jess Osie, Vedic Meditation teacher and the founder of the Vedic Mamas Circle, a group she created specifically to support meditating mothers in all stages of motherhood.
Between laughter and tears, Isabel and Kristen discuss with Jess all the nuances of being a mom in today’s crazy world–everything from “mom guilt,” to parenting during Covid, to embracing the beautiful mess. Then they take the lens wider and speak about the “big M” Mother, and how am awakening of the Divine Mothering consciousness in all of us is what our world needs to heal. Whether you are a mother, have a mother, or know a mother, you will take something away from this conversation.
Jess will be starting the next round of the Vedic Mamas Circle November 3, 2021. If you are interested in joining this 5-week online journey dedicated to honoring and nurturing the sacred role of being a mother, you can sign up here: https://www.jessosie.com/vedic-mamas-circle
- Visa fler
