Love is the power podcast

Welcome back from summer vacation, Love Is The Power listeners! We’re easing into September this week with a meditation and group style inquiry led by Tom on noticing some of our favourite ways to stop ourselves from living in harmony with life, and questioning those root beliefs. The inquiry goes from looking at the simple belief that it isn’t possible to live in harmony with life given specific sets of circumstances to studying a pattern of feeling hurt by other people. As Tom points out, the mind will often minimize the positive effects of peace. But could it be true that taking care of our own inner world and questioning the thoughts that disrupt our ability to live in harmony with everything around us is one of the best ways to serve the world?

This week’s episode is an exploration of the search for freedom. For those of us who find ourselves on some kind of spiritual path, practicing techniques that allow us to expand into truer, fuller expressions of what we really are, it can be tempting to identify as ‘seekers.’ Usually what we’re seeking is a sense of freedom. One such seeker poses the question in this episode, “Is there such a thing as freedom?” All the mystics – ancient and modern – say there is. But why is it so hard to find it? And how does it connect to the idea of free will? Are we actually controlling the events of our life? Could it be that real freedom comes from releasing the “I” that thinks it needs to manage everything? Join in the group inquiry, get still, and notice what arises within in response to these questions.

This week’s episode explores subconscious beliefs and how to empty the reservoir of the unconscious mind. Using self inquiry, we’re continuing last week’s exploration of the mind’s tendency to divide things under the labels of ‘me’ and ‘not me.’ How do we live when our life experience is ruled by those concepts? What if what we’ve been believing ourselves to be is nothing but a fictitious character? And who might we be if we opened our minds enough to experience ourselves without these stories? Could it be that who we are is much broader, much more expensive, than we’ve allowed ourselves to imagine?

This week’s episode is the 300th episode of Love Is The Power! So we thought we’d tackle a big question: What is real? At Tom’s invitation, we are looking at our own direct experience in this moment to see if we can actually find a border between ourselves and anything – or anyone – else. The tendency to refer to things outside the body as “Not me” is a long, long habit of humanity. But what if it’s true that separation is just a belief? What if it’s not a fact of life? And what amazing avenues of existing might we discover beyond this illusory thought?

This week Tom invites participants to share some of their favourite stories to tell that make them miserable. One share uncovers the thought “I could lose something” which becomes a group popcorn-style inquiry. If you know what it’s like to live from the fear of losing something, or out of fear in general, this contemplation is for you. How do you react when you believe you could lose something vital (like your job, house, partner, child, parent, health)? Does the thought bring peace or stress into your life? Who might you be without it?