There’s an elephant in the room anytime someone talks about energy healing, an elephant named Placebo. For most of us, placebo means you got the sugar pill. It means...
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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.
True spirituality is not about getting what you want or fixing the outside world, but learning to be okay inside by letting go of preferences, stored pain, and inner resistance. Reality unfolds through universal causes, not personal desires, and suffering comes from pitting yourself against what is. Enlightenment comes from witnessing your inner experiences without suppression, honoring all emotions, and living in harmony with, and selflessly serving, whatever life presents to you.
What does enlightenment look like in Christian tradition? How do we cultivate the kind of presence that transforms ordinary moments into sacred encounters?
This week on Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon shares a rebroadcast of one of her most cherished interviews—a conversation recorded at Mount St. Benedict’s Monastery in Erie, Pennsylvania with Sister Joan Chittister, just before her 83rd birthday. Sister Joan is an American Benedictine nun, theologian, and author of more than 50 books who has spent over 40 years advocating for peace, human rights, women’s issues, and church renewal.
Join Tami and Sister Joan to explore:
The Christian path from contemplation to unity and “seeing the world through God’s eyes”
Sister Joan’s mystical experience of light as a teenager and how it shaped her entire spiritual life
The sacrament of the present moment and what true presence actually requires
Why opening your heart sometimes means closing it to certain things
How spiritual traditions are evolving and what religion offers in an increasingly secular age
The prayer Sister Joan repeats before every talk: accepting “whatsoever deaths thou shall choose to send me”
Why consciousness—not mindfulness techniques—is the foundation of contemplative living
This is a conversation about what a lifetime of monastic practice reveals, the electricity of divine presence, and how struggle itself becomes the crucible for transformation.
Want to go deeper? Listen to the complete seven-hour conversation in the audio series Catching Fire at soundstrue.com
Human suffering arises from the belief that life must match our inner preferences, which are simply selectively stored past experiences. This attempt to control reality leads to anxiety, resistance, and endless struggle, because the outside world unfolds according to its own laws—not ours. True spiritual freedom comes through surrender, acceptance, and dying to the ego-self, allowing us to rest in the seat of consciousness and live in peace, love, and service to what is.
Dr. James Hollis is a Jungian analyst, a former director of the Jung Society of Washington, DC, and a professor of Jungian Studies for Saybrook University of San Francisco/Houston. He is the author of The Middle Passage, Living an Examined Life, Through the Dark Wood, and Living Between Worlds, among many others. With Sounds True, he’s released the expansive audio program A Life of Meaning: Exploring Our Deepest Questions and Motivations. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with James about the journey for personal fulfillment—how it starts, what it demands, and how it changes your life. James explains what it really means to take responsibility for your life’s path, as well as how you can rediscover and reclaim your innate authority. Tami and James discuss how childhood experiences shape our present behavior and what it takes to live fearlessly. Finally, they talk about overcoming lethargy and the joy of becoming comfortable with mysteries.
James Finley is a clinical psychologist and the author of books such as Christian Meditation and The Contemplative Heart. With Sounds True, James has created several audio learning programs including Meister Eckhart’s Living Wisdom and Transforming Trauma (with Caroline Myss). In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and James discuss the concept, history, and direct experience of “the dark night of the soul.” They also speak on the possibility of healing trauma through spiritual practice. (54 minutes)
Dr. Rachael Wooten is a Zurich-trained Jungian analyst and psychologist who has been in private practice as a therapist for more than 40 years. An enthusiastic interfaith activist, she has studied and practiced in Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and indigenous traditions throughout her adult life. With Sounds True, Dr. Wooten has written a new book called, Tara: The Liberating Power of the Female Buddha.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, you are invited to get to know Tara as a very real and deeply empowering presence in your own life, as Dr. Wooten introduces you to the radiant figure beloved by millions in Tibet and across the world. In conversation with Tami Simon, she also discusses the 21 traditional emanations of Tara, the first steps involved in embarking on a relationship with Tara, and how to enlist her help at this particular time in history. (1 hour, 7 minutes)
“When your personal self isn’t taking over,” teaches Michael Singer, “your heart is full and your mind is clear.” So what stops this from happening? Our fears and our desires.
In this episode, Michael shows us how to replace the never-ending pursuit of what you think will make you OK with that which will actually fill you with unconditional love and joy.
Like a boat sailing on the sea, there are two significant forces guiding our journey through life: the natural forces all around us and the practical skills needed to reach our destinations. Here, Michael Singer explores the essentials for making our way on the spiritual path.
There’s nothing even remotely spiritual about going through life reacting to events. In this episode, Michael Singer explores how to become aware of our emotional reactions, navigate the energies that drive them, and learn to respond to triggering events with greater consciousness.
In this season opener, Michael Singer guides us into the understanding and practice of what he calls “the highest technique,” that of relaxing in the midst of your resistance to life’s events—and then fully experiencing the present moment.
Are you ready for the next chapter in Michael Singer’s profound (and often irreverent) wisdom? Check out this audio trailer from Sounds True founder Tami Simon, announcing Season Three of The Michael Singer Podcast.
Join us on [September 13th] for the first new episode of this acclaimed podcast.
We suffer when reality fails to conform to what we want or gives us what we don’t want. Instead of trying to manipulate the external world, spirituality involves becoming conscious of our inner reactions, learning to relax through uncomfortable experiences, and allowing stored emotional pain to pass through rather than suppressing it. The realities of everyday life simply unfold according to natural laws, both physical and psychological, while the mind creates problems by insisting that life should be what we want based on our past experiences. Spiritual growth comes from becoming aware of the limiting effect of our preferences and gradually expanding them to include all of life so that love, joy, and inner freedom can naturally arise.
Consciousness is the experiencer of all things, and spiritual growth means realizing you are that consciousness, not what you are conscious of. When our awareness is consistently distracted by objects, be they outside or in, we begin to identify with them, which creates lasting inner impressions. From these, we form the ego with its constant attempts to control life. Liberation comes through inwardly relaxing, letting go, and remaining in witness consciousness, allowing stored disturbances to dissolve and restoring us to the natural state of freedom and oneness.
The personal mind is not the true source of our thoughts but rather an expression of the emotional disturbances, fears, desires, and unresolved experiences stored in the heart. Attempts to quiet the mind through suppression or mental control only strengthen these inner blockages, whereas genuine healing comes from relaxing through discomfort and allowing emotional energy to pass naturally. By practicing letting go in everyday situations and refusing to store new disturbances, we gradually free ourselves from past conditioning, keep the heart open, and experience greater love, peace, and spiritual freedom.
True spiritual growth occurs when we shift our focus from external forms—relationships, possessions, and passing circumstances—to the inner flow of spiritual energy (Shakti). Happiness and love do not come from controlling life; they arise naturally when we stop blocking the inner energy flow through resisting life’s experiences. Every experience in life, pleasant or unpleasant, offers an opportunity for spiritual growth if we remain open. Once we learn to honor the natural movement of inner energy, we can live with greater joy, love, freedom, and continuous spiritual awakening.
Spiritual awakening begins when a person realizes they are the witness of the mind rather than the mind itself. This awakening evolves as one objectively notices the inner voice and realizes how it creates suffering by resisting reality, fearing painful experiences, and clinging to pleasurable ones. Through witnessing, practicing surrender, and learning to relax through emotional disturbances, one gradually becomes centered, loving, and free to align with the natural flow of life.
Both modern quantum physics and ancient spirituality point to a universe arising from an underlying field of energy. Spirituality goes one step further: the source of that field is an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient field of consciousness. It is that very consciousness that is observing our thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Human suffering begins when we resist what we are experiencing, store those resisted impressions, and build a self-concept around what we have stored. Spiritual growth comes through learning to relax through life’s experiences without resistance, letting impressions pass through rather than storing them, and thereby allowing consciousness to return to its natural state of freedom, unity, and divine awareness.
According to Michael Singer, the only one stopping you from experiencing the heights of divine ecstasy and freedom is you. In this podcast, he describes the real work of the spiritual path as the process of removing our inner blockages and self-made obstacles in order to uncover the natural states of bliss and spiritual liberation that are our birthright. He also discusses discovering “witness consciousness,” the cause of karma, the art of relaxing and releasing resistance to our experience, and more.
The time that we have between our births and our deaths is a great gift. What we do with this time and how we give our lives meaning is the subject of this podcast with Michael Singer. Here, Singer discusses hard yet empowering truths about the fleeting nature of our lives, the inherent flaw in our most common strategies for feeling “okay inside,” why spirituality is never about getting what you want or avoiding what you don’t want, and much more.
What do psychology and spirituality have in common? In this podcast, Michael Singer discusses how both psychology and spirituality help us illuminate the nature of the human mind and the mystery of consciousness. When we resist experiences we find uncomfortable, he explains, we begin to “make a mess” of our inner lives. Through the teachings and practices made available in spirituality and psychology, we can do the work of cleaning things up, purifying the flow of our life-force energy and returning to the ecstatic states we were meant to live in.
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.
The world’s great wisdom traditions all speak on the value of surrender. In this episode, Michael discusses what it takes to grow beyond spiritual resistance.
How do you know when you’re actually walking the path or when you’re just strengthening your ego? Here, Michael considers the gateways to and pitfalls of spiritual work.
