Love is an inner energy that flows naturally when the heart is open, but people block it by holding onto past pain and resisting reality. The external world does...
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco.
Tami Simon’s in-depth audio podcast interviews with leading spiritual teachers and luminaries. Listen in as they explore their latest challenges and breakthroughs - the leading edge of their work.
Join the New York Times bestselling author of The Untethered Soul, The Surrender Experiment, and Living Untethered for this free series of curated teaching sessions, recorded at his Temple of the Universe yoga and meditation center.
Problems occur when consciousness becomes identified with external objects and forgets its own nature as pure, eternal witnessing presence. Ego emerges when we build a self-concept based on our past experiences, which leads to suffering whenever reality doesn’t align with internal expectations. The path to liberation begins by accepting what is and allowing our past stored blockages to be transmuted through spiritual practice and clarity. The true self is the unchanging observer, resting in pure consciousness beyond the personal mind, where the divine experiences creation.
The use of logic, reason, and will is integral to spiritual growth. The body, heart, and mind are divine gifts meant to help consciousness experience life, but suffering arises when the mind becomes identified with its past experiences. Spiritual liberation involves recognizing our free will, practicing letting go in daily life, and gradually purifying the stored emotional residue that shapes our personal preferences and suffering. Through this process, consciousness begins to rise, ultimately merging with the divine, leading to complete oneness and inner transformation.
What truly matters when we face the end of life? After decades of sitting at the bedside of hundreds of dying people, Frank Ostaseski has distilled the deepest human concerns into two essential questions: Am I loved? Have I loved well?
This week on Insights at the Edge, Tami welcomes Frank Ostaseski—co-founder of America’s first Buddhist hospice, the Zen Hospice Project, founder of the Metta Institute, and author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully. Frank brings extraordinary wisdom from his pioneering work in compassionate end-of-life care, along with profound personal insights from his own encounters with heart surgery, strokes, and the transformative vulnerability of being “on the other side of the sheets.”
Join Tami and Frank to explore:
The two essential questions that arise when facing death—and what they reveal about living fully now
Why emotional flexibility is the true condition for healing and transformation
How to meet our own fear and pain without abandoning ourselves or others
The practice of “allowing” as a path to both wisdom and compassion
What happens in the dying process: surrender, reconstitution, and coming home
Why Frank is allergic to the notion of a “good death”
The indestructible love that emerges when we keep our hearts open through pain
How to practice dying by paying attention to everyday endings
This conversation is for anyone grappling with loss, change, or the fundamental questions of existence—offering not prescriptive answers, but the profound medicine of honest presence and the recognition that our vulnerability itself is one of our most beautiful human qualities.
This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.
Have you ever pushed a thought aside or stuffed an emotion away deep inside? Most of us have! Michael Singer teaches that this is an act of will stemming from a simple intention: to feel better. In this podcast, he discusses the incredible power of our human will and how we use it, (for better or worse) in this deep exploration of intention and the pathway to self-realization and spiritual freedom.
Elizabeth Stanley is a Georgetown University professor and the creator of Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT)®, an approach taught to thousands in civilian and military high stress environments. A U.S. Army veteran with service in Asia and Europe, she holds degrees from Yale, Harvard, and MIT. She is the author of the book, Widen the Window: Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Elizabeth Stanley about her 8-session online course, Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training: A Trauma-Sensitive Online Course to Build Resilience and Thrive During Stress. They also discuss why MMFT is a practice we can all benefit from; the value of expanding our “window of tolerance”; the relationship between personal agency and trauma; the “thinking” brain versus the “survival” brain; when stress becomes trauma; the importance of recovery from stressful situations; and more.
Steve Macadam was, for 12 years, the President and CEO of EnPro, a $1.4 billion publicly traded company. He received a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Kentucky, an MS in finance from Boston College, and an MBA from Harvard University, where he was a Baker Scholar. He currently serves as an independent director on the boards of Louisiana-Pacific Corporation and Valvoline Inc. In this week’s podcast, Tami and Steve discuss what it means for a company to have “dual bottom lines,” and the aspiration to create a business with the formal purpose of enabling the full release of human possibility. (1 hour, 13 minutes)
Acceptance and surrender are key spiritual principles that focus on embracing reality as it is and using it to let go of inner resistance and turmoil. Seen in this light, life’s challenges are not problems; they are opportunities for growth and spiritual evolution. For example, karma is not a punishment but a learning tool encouraging you to evolve consciously. By practicing acceptance and surrender, individuals can achieve clarity and respond to situations thoughtfully, which fosters great spiritual growth.
Why do people experience so many problems in life? If you look objectively, you will see that problems arise because we have deeply ingrained preferences about how life should unfold. These manifest as desires and fears that are rooted in our unresolved experiences from the past. True freedom and joy can only be achieved by letting go of this stored negativity and embracing life as it unfolds. Ultimately, fulfillment comes not from controlling external circumstances but from inner alignment and openness to life’s flow.
Transcendence is the state of fully experiencing life while maintaining inner peace, regardless of circumstances. It is not detachment or avoidance of life but rather embracing all moments as they unfold without resistance or preference. This openness enables a state of joy and inner harmony, transforming preferences and fears into acceptance and love. Ultimately, transcendence aligns you with universal consciousness, allowing life to flow freely within and through you.
Living in the present moment frees you from the burden of past experiences and anxieties about the future. Emotional and psychological blockages, formed by resistance to the past, will inevitably distort your mind’s view of reality and limit happiness. By practicing mindfulness, acceptance, and inner purification, you can learn to live in the present moment and embrace life’s challenges with enthusiasm and openness rather than fear and resistance.
Much of our inner suffering arises from the accumulation of unresolved emotional experiences stored within. By learning to release these blockages and letting life’s events pass through without resistance, you can reconnect with your natural energy flow, which fosters love, creativity, and harmony. By practicing self-awareness and nonjudgment, and using life’s challenges as opportunities for spiritual growth, you can rediscover your true nature and live in a state of inner freedom, compassion, and fulfillment.
True understanding of consciousness comes not through philosophical thinking or external experimentation but from the direct experience of Self. When awareness is no longer distracted by thoughts, emotions, and sensory inputs, you can remain in the seat of objective observation and directly experience the true nature of consciousness. Ancient yogis achieved this state through practices that quieted the mind and withdrew attention from external distractions. This led to a profound merger with the universal source of consciousness. True spiritual evolution involves turning inward to explore consciousness directly.
The mind is constantly trying to solve disturbances that originate in the heart, but the mind cannot truly resolve them. These disturbances come from stored emotional impressions that must be released through awareness, relaxation, and non-resistance. Spiritual growth occurs by working at the level of the heart—allowing energy to rise, be processed, and ultimately transformed into higher states of consciousness.
The purpose of life is for divine consciousness to merge back into unity through the expression and experience of its interaction with form. Human suffering arises when we resist this process of evolution and demand that the outside world match our personal desires and fears, rather than learning from the reality of the present moment as it unfolds. Enlightenment is the natural outcome of letting go and merging with the unfolding reality, serving the divine rather than the egoic self.
When you’re open, life feels beautiful and joyful; when you’re closed, everything seems wrong. This leaves you with two choices: find things that open you or find out how not to close. The first leads to a life of struggling with people, places, and things to match your preferences, while the second leads to the spiritual state of unconditional well-being. Make your choice.
Your life is the fleeting moments between your birth and death. During this time, true fulfillment does not come from external achievements but from an internal state of unconditional joy and love. Because we condition our happiness on outside circumstances, it often leads to suffering, attachment, and endless striving for some satisfaction. By letting go of stored past disturbances that have blocked your natural well-being, you can unlock a state of unconditional happiness and appreciate each moment as it unfolds.
People shape their aspirations based on their past experiences, clinging to what they liked and resisting what they disliked. This leads to a life filled with anxiety and the need to control. You can break free from this cycle by letting go of blockages from the past and engaging with life as it unfolds. To help you do this, your experiences in life can be wonderful teachers. Ultimately, they teach you that the pursuit of external acceptance and material success pales in comparison to inner peace and self-discovery. There is something very beautiful hiding inside of you—go find it.
The use of logic, reason, and will is integral to spiritual growth. The body, heart, and mind are divine gifts meant to help consciousness experience life, but suffering arises when the mind becomes identified with its past experiences. Spiritual liberation involves recognizing our free will, practicing letting go in daily life, and gradually purifying the stored emotional residue that shapes our personal preferences and suffering. Through this process, consciousness begins to rise, ultimately merging with the divine, leading to complete oneness and inner transformation.
People shape their aspirations based on their past experiences, clinging to what they liked and resisting what they disliked. This leads to a life filled with anxiety and the need to control. You can break free from this cycle by letting go of blockages from the past and engaging with life as it unfolds. To help you do this, your experiences in life can be wonderful teachers. Ultimately, they teach you that the pursuit of external acceptance and material success pales in comparison to inner peace and self-discovery. There is something very beautiful hiding inside of you—go find it.
Pain is a physical sensation, while suffering is a psychological struggle created by resisting reality and holding onto past experiences. By learning to relax and allow emotions to pass through without attachment, you can reduce suffering and open yourself to joy and inner peace. True freedom comes from learning to let go of preferences and expectations and embracing life as it unfolds rather than always resisting it. Learning to first accept reality and then working to raise it leads to a state of inner peace, fulfillment, and Self-Realization.
In most cases, the quality of your life is not determined by external circumstances but by your own mental dialogue. Your awareness is trapped by thoughts, desires, and past experiences, which dictate your ability to enjoy life. The key to liberation is learning to let go of these mental preferences, rather than trying to manipulate external circumstances to satisfy the mind. Through awareness and conscious practice, you can learn to embrace life’s experiences and explore the higher states of your being.
Yoga isn’t merely about physical postures or meditation techniques; it is the journey toward union with the true self. It introduces the concept of koshas—layers of human existence from the physical body to the blissful body. Consciousness gets entangled in the lower bodies of thoughts, emotions, and past experiences, which leads to suffering and distraction from our inherent joy. True spiritual growth is not about seeking something external but about letting go of these stored emotional and mental blockages. Ultimately, yoga is the process of transcending these layers and experiencing our natural state of bliss, love, and oneness with the universe.
The most fundamental decision you can make about life is either I can handle it or I can’t. Suffering stems from the inability to process life’s experiences, leading to avoidance, resistance, and the need for control. Instead of trying to manipulate external conditions to feel OK, true growth comes from learning to handle whatever arises. The key to spiritual development is to stop storing past negative experiences, welcome challenges, and develop the ability to accept and engage with life as it unfolds. Spirituality is not about getting what you want—it’s about reaching inner wholeness and having a positive impact on the world around you.
The Law of Attraction is real, but it operates at a much higher level than merely to fulfill your personal desires. Michael shares some personal anecdotes and spiritual insights, which highlight the interconnectedness of reality and the power of appreciation versus attraction. True fulfillment in life comes from transcending your ego-based desires rather than trying to manipulate circumstances to satisfy them. By rising above the personal and aligning with the universe’s natural flow, you can experience deeper awareness, energy, and unity with all creation.
