Simple Advice to Spiritual Practitioners

Platonism provided much of the classic world with powerful and clear teachings on self-perfection and the ascent to divinity. The seven levels of virtue represent a divine ladder that the soul can climb in its mystical and philosophic journey. Though ethical teachings developed over the course of a thousand years within Platonism, this video looks at the final teachings on virtue as they had been refined in the last days of the platonic academy before the outlaw of the philosophers and their fleeing into Persia.

How did the ancient philosophers understand the spiritual process through philosophy? In this episode we look at the analytical method of Dialectic, used by the ancient Greek, Indian, and Asian philosophers in their own spiritual disciplines to further their understanding of the Self and the World. 

Is there more to spirituality than the common right-brain, heart-centered approach so popular today?

Is there a way to qualify a claim to enlightenment?  Are there signs of success that we can reliably use to help navigate our own inner experience and make sure we don't delude ourselves? In today's spiritual climate it has become commonplace for a teacher to claim their own enlightenment even if no other masters have recognized their attainment, making it difficult for sincere seekers to determine who is a legitimate spiritual teacher and who is just a deluded novice.  In this episode we look at some of the issues with self-proclaimed enlightenment experiences, their history in the spiritual tradition, and how to navigate the murky waters of subjective experience.

Is there an independent self, or is there actually no selfhood at all? In this episode we compare and contrast the teachings of Plato, Buddha, and Shankar on the nature of personal experience, identity, and our relationship to the world. Plato is the philosophic and mystical exemplar of teachings on the nature of the soul and self-knowledge, while Buddha and Shankar are both exemplars of the teaching of Anatma(no-self) in Buddhism and Advaita.  We will look at the implications of each of their views on the nature of the self, and try to find how best to understand and relate to them in modern spirituality and philosophy. 

Spiritual materialism is a problem as old as the spiritual path itself, but the economic mindset of the modern era has exaggerated the problem to new proportions. The spiritual path is gradually becoming more and more mundane, both in our personal practice and in how it is presented and taught. This episode looks at the issue of marketplace spirituality, or spiritual materialism, and the problem it causes for practitioners as well as for the reputation and longevity of the spiritual path itself.

In over a decade of teaching meditation, yoga, and various forms of spiritual discipline, there is almost always one simple problem at the root of all other issues that a student or practitioner is experiencing. This episode is a short and simple reminder of the best remedy for most of your spiritual problems.

Double ignorance was described by the ancient philosophers as being the principle cause of all the world's problems. Plato describes it as being when "you don't know that you don't know something", and Socrates spent his life trying to help people out of double ignorance and into a pure simple ignorance of knowing that we don't know. This state of simple ignorance is the starting point of the spiritual path and self-discovery, and in this video we look at how we can reach this starting place by purifying ourselves of double ignorance.

Many practitioners hit a wall in their spiritual progress at some point in their life. This is usually called "spiritual dryness" and can plague a practitioner for years, even taking them off the path entirely if it isn't overcome. In this episode we look at four common reasons why people fall prone to spiritual stagnation, and how to evaluate ourselves and our path to make sure we stay on the right track and make steady progress on the spiritual journey.

The Guru-Disciple relationship is one of the most important but also one of the most controversial and abused parts of the spiritual path. In this episode we examine the nature of this relationship, and investigate some of the problems that arise when westerners try to adopt an idea that is foreign to their culture, projecting onto it their own cultural ideas and ethics and creating endless obstacles in the process. We will look at a few traditional texts to help establish what a Guru is and what their role should be in the life of the disciple, and then see how modern practitioners (and especially westerners) can best take advantage of this ancient practice without accidentally ruining it or making it something that it isn't.

The sources cited in this video are:
1)Shankaracharya, Upadesha Sahasri, 1:1:6. Ramakrishna math translation.
2) Samarth Ramdas, Dasbodha, 5:2:15 and 5:2:18. Sadguru publishing.
3) Gampopa, A Precious Garland of the Supreme Path, 3rd Chapter. Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, Snow Lion Publishing.