Podcast The Walk of Life
Tres Tempordas. Three Seasons
por Oscar E. Muñoz
Season 1: Early Steps
Description:
How can we easily approach self-knowledge? Self-knowledge is not something extraordinary that only happens to the wise and the saints. Every human being during childhood approaches self-knowledge from the surprising discovery that the child makes of the world and his or her own identity in relation to the world. Play is the first form that this knowledge takes. Before any philosophy book, before any psychology book, before any meditation or spiritual school, is play. This immediate and spontaneous path is blocked to a certain extent in adolescence and there happens a strong shift in the way we come into playing. However the return to that play space of childhood, of that spot in ourselves which is pure, innocent and delightful, is possible anytime because it was never really compromised.
Episode 1
First Glimpses of Self-Knowledge (Part One). 23’
Link: https://go.ivoox.com/sq/2455969
Description:
How can we easily approach self-knowledge? Self-knowledge is not something extraordinary that only happens to the wise and the saints. Every human being during childhood approaches self-knowledge from the surprising discovery that the child makes of the world and his or her own identity in relation to the world. Play is the first form that this knowledge takes. Before any philosophy book, before any psychology book, before any meditation or spiritual school, is play. This immediate and spontaneous path is blocked to a certain extent in adolescence and there happens a strong shift in the way we come into playing. However the return to that play space of childhood, of that spot in ourselves which is pure, innocent and delightful, is possible anytime because it was never really compromised.
Episode 2
First Glimpses of Self-Knowledge (Part Two) 24’26’’. Uploaded July 7, 2024.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/131320972
Description:
The little child path is completely joyful. It begins as a game of knowledge and that play unconsciously becomes a game of self-knowledge. Something very deep is shown through the play of the child: the first projections of a pristine human being. Children project themselves in nature and in the others, spontaneously and with almost no filters. Our first forays into self-knowledge are made through the play door. In order to play, we need to create the play space a space that is different to the one of everyday life. An interesting and simple question that we try to solve in this episode is: How did we pass from an early stage of magic and play in childhood to a state of dullness and machine like behavior in adulthood?
Episode 3
Hide and Seek (Part One). 28’ 46’’. Uploaded July 8 , 2024.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/131347825
In this episode we discuss the more universal of games, the one that we play when we are in the crib, when we are babies, the hide and seek game. The hide and sick game is the most fundamental of games, it is basically the play of the Universe. Hide and seek is connected to our formations of identity, to our masks, and those narrative processes are related to the processes of deep memory construction and recollection, to psychological remembrances and oblivion. Gaining access to playful memories can unveil aspects of ourselves that we thought to be dead.
Episode 4
Hide and Seek (Part Two). 23’ 11’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/131496002
The game of hide and seek is at the root of human play. It is about appearing and disappearing and in that sense we can say that it is the ontological game, the game of the Self. Science is the discovery of the laws of the universe . Those laws are not just at plain sight.In order to understand gravitation and the other physical laws, we need to go beyond appearances, and the intuition that led us in that direction it is present in us since childhood. That is what is shown in the universal game of hide and seek. The intuitions from which the notions of what is illusory and what is real were developed are closely linked to this game, revealing it as the fundamental game of self-knowledge.
Episode 5
Soul Talk (Part One). 23’30’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/131605219
One of the most common forms of Soul Talk that often goes unnoticed occurs when we speak to the Universe, when we are alone with the Alone. The most direct form of this Soul Talk occurs in our dialogue with Nature. Such a dialogue can occur directly in our feelings and our desires, then we can hear the dialogue in our inner Self. It can also occur by “reading the world”, reading the signs that we find in the natural world. Those signs function as a mirror of our soul. Walking through Nature is an allegory of our own existence and if we pay attention it is a direct and easy access to the Great Talk of the Soul.
Episode 6
Soul Talk (Part Two). 21’57’’. Uploaded July 16, 2024.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/131675056
Soul Talk is about spontaneity and presence. Being present in every moment of our lives is not a simple task, furthermore, presence is not a task at all. The paradox about presence is that if we try to be in it from the egoic will, we lose spontaneity, and with it the presence is blocked in favor of well-established protocols of behavior, whether those of basic emotions or those that we have learned with our daily habits. Any form of yogic technique distances us from presence.
Episode 7
Soul Talk. (Part Three). 16’16’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/131795614
Another form of Soul Talk is laughter. Laughter frees us from the need for a meaning external to life itself, there is a meaning to life beyond the concept of meaning itself. We could say that laughter is a variety of samadhi with form, an ecstasy of lucidity in the face of the ephemeral and evanescent nature of existence. This does not mean that we escape sadness. Sadness, when not monopolized by the ego, is also a form of Soul Talk in which deep nostalgia is expressed.
Episode 8
Love Play as Soul Talk (Part One). 22’ 59’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/131913305
Love Play is a form of Soul Talk that to some extent synthesizes the other forms of Soul Talk we have discussed here. If we observe the love poetry that humanity has developed since the beginning of writing, we realize that our loving practices and our ideas about love are not the same throughout time. A turning point in this development of our loving experience occurs with the fusion between divine and human love. In this mystical synthesis, the transcendent and the immanent merge into a single experience. It is not a monolithic and homogeneous phenomenon worldwide, as it presents various variants, although we find a common denominator in the mate love as a mystical experience. The development of this tendency in the poetry of the Sufi tradition is remarkable.
Episode 9
Love Play as Soul Talk (Part Two). 20’ 07’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/131945515
Love Play can only occur in the absence of egoic masks. When Love Play develops between two people, whether it's a lineage connection or a connection that seems to come from a personal choice, Soul Talk will only happen in that Play in the absence of egoic masks. Soul Talk with your partner is a quick way to self-knowledge, although it is extraordinarily difficult for it to happen because not only individual but also strong social conditioning prevents the transparency of the relationship and the innocence and spontaneity that are essential to Soul Talk.
Episode 10
A Backward Glace over our Early Steps (Part One). 23’47’’
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/132202346
This episode reviews the main themes of this first season of the Podcast with various comments from the different participants. In this way, the understanding of the spontaneous approach that every human being makes to self-knowledge from an early age is deepened and, step by step, a transpersonal metaphysics of the human soul is exposed in which to reveal our immediate and daily life experience.
Episode 11
A Backward Glace over our Early Steps (Part One). 26’47’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/132202524
This episode reviews the main themes of this first season of the Podcast with various comments from the different participants. In this way, the understanding of the spontaneous approach that every human being makes to self-knowledge from an early age is deepened and, step by step, a transpersonal metaphysics of the human soul is exposed in which to reveal our immediate and daily life experience.
Episode 11 also previews some of the contents of what will be season two, starting with the touchstones of self-knowledge in relation to personality: masks and egoic constructions.
Episode 12
Spontaneous Me. (Part One). 25’37’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/132470466
Throughout the different episodes we have talked about the revealing effect that spontaneity has on self-knowledge. Through spontaneity and play, emotional masks reveal deeper forces of human identity. However, this spontaneity and flow of our soul meets difficulties in the rigorous repetition that we encounter in our own experience of certain patterns of behavior. This episode examines the relationship between the repetition cycles of our souls and the desire to break these cycles. This discussion leads us to understanding the difference between the realms of the soul and the realm of the Spirit, the "I Am."
Episode 13
Spontaneous Me (Part Two). 19’ 03’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/132538487
How to maintain spontaneity in a mechanically structured society? How to be spontaneous and at the same time accountable for our actions? Are our legal systems the expression of a universal ethical order? In the episode, the ontological axiom of an order of the Universe, of a Sanatama Dharma, is expressed using the expression of Hinduism, the only order to which the Human Being is accountable for. It is about accountability in relation to Love and Freedom, the two orders that govern every Human Being.
Episode 14
Young Dharma. 32’ 26’’
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/133455467
When we refer the Order of the Universe to the Human Being we speak of Dharma. My ordered relationship with the Universe, my way of “being the Universe” is my Dharma, the loving dialogue of my Humanity with the Cosmos. We progressed as Humans from the basic valuations of survival, the protocols of basic instincts towards habits, customs and then towards the rational reflection of ethics on which we construct our legal codes. Dharma goes beyond legal codes not only in its subjective dimensions but also in its transcendental scope. Early stages of Dharma, the “young Dharma”, are egoic. The mature Dharma is egoless.
Epilogue
In Beauty May I Walk. 12’30’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/133455637
The verse from the Navaho prayer “In Beauty may I walk” sets the emotional frame for the reflection upon the path traveled in the Podcast. Self-knowledge is a path of Beauty.
Season 2. The Path of Beauty:
Masks and Transpersonality
Episode 1
What is a Mask (Part One). 25’44’’
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/133578996
The Second Season of “The Walk of Life” will deal with the question of identity masks from a metaphysical, anthropological and epistemological point of view and will offer a philosophical perspective on transpersonality. In the episodes of the First Season, the first forms of approach to self-knowledge were dealt with. We saw how through childhood games, and later through forms of Soul Talk, we were already on the path to self-knowledge.
In this Second Season, a vitalist and transcendentalist foundation of philosophical anthropology will be given. The Big Question, the Meaning of Life, will start to unveil through a self-knowledge based on the understanding of the transpersonality of the human Soul.
This first Episode begins by defining the concept of the mask that will be used in the Podcast, showing examples of the antiquity of the use of masks in the traditions of Anima Mundi, in the Mysteries of Antiquity and in the origin of Theater.
Episode 2
What is a Mask (Part Two). 21’39’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/133584627
In the second Episode we continue discussing the topics of the previous one with the analysis of the different elements that constitute the game of superimpositions of the vital experience, upadhi, using to the terminology of Advaita Vedanta.
Episode 3
Interlude on our Experience of Time in relation to Human Identity. 23’45’’
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/133772678
The identity we construct, the human masks, are not independent of the knowledge we have of the past. Never before have we had so much information about the past of humanity, about its myths and ways of life. Ignoring the ways of thinking, feeling and desiring of the cultures and civilizations of the past relegates us to living in a dreamlike and sleepy vigil. The human experience of time is not linear. Past, present and future are integrated into an existential sphere that cannot be separated into its elements. The future of those who came before us is not our present. Nor will our future be the present of any human being, since the three dimensions of time cannot be separated.
Episode 4
Behind the Mask. 21’ 31’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/133807063
If a Mask is a structure of identity, i.e. an ordered system of identity, we may ask ourselves what is underneath that system. This Episode answers the question discussing the question of a final substratum of the Universe. This substratum is the Subject, characterized in terms of Universal Awareness.
Episode 5
Masks and Consciousness. 23’18’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/134093128
The Subject is the Substance behind the superpositions of the masks. The subject is what thinks, perceives, feels and desires . This Subject is tagged by the pronoun I. The simplest mask is the “am”, the action of being. What is that I? we cannot say, because if we say anything about the “I” we are creating a mask. “I am” is awareness and existence, in the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta such force is called “Maya”, the creative power of the Universe, the force that creates masks.
Episode 6
Trikala (Part One). 25’ 16’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/134093273
Present, past, and future are only one thing , constitute one experience. They form tridimensional time or Trikala, using its sanskrit word. Understanding Trikala is fundamental in relation to the mask. In terms of our personal lives, our past started way before we were born. We inherited a physiology which has been functioning for millions of years. Our psyche unfolded in relation to the degree of complexity of such physiology, and it was not created by us individually. Besides there is a social construction of our psychological identity, a narrative which opened the Human Being to the world of the symbol and the Spirit, Consciousness, the realm of the “I Am”.
Episode 7
Trikala (Part Two). 24’ 02’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/134142055
If we try to understand our soul, our masks, only from the point of view of our personal life, we will fail because the roots are in the society that we grew up in. That is the root of transpersonality. How big would you say that is your Trikala sphere? We are trying to understand this from a philosphical-psychological-anthropological point of view, with the purpose of understanding our masks, so we can understand really how to live and interact with those masks .
Episode 8
Inner and Outer. 20’ 06’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/134535901
Masks become an epistemological tool for thinking the inner and the outer self and their relationship. The Ancestor -Shaman is the mask that understands the link between the inner and the outer, the plural mask that becomes such link. The inner and the outer for the shaman are connected. The concept used for establishing such connection is common to all Shamans with very small differences. Of course the word used change from one place to another, but they refer to an identical force. Using the word of the Lakota people, we can call that force “Wakan”. Wakan, is the energy or power that links everything together in the World. The wakan is the energy that unifies that connects the inner and the outer that connects the Human to its surroundings. And what is Wakan ? In simple terms, we can say that it is the substratum force behind the mask .
Episode 9
Shaman’s Mask. 20’31’’ .
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/134562428
The Shaman is not a person but the heir of a lineage and in this sense is a plural transpersonal mask, through which the ancestors speak. The Shaman is the founding hero, but he is also the priest and the psychopomp, the companion of the soul to the other worlds. He is the poet and the artist, the actor who represents in ritual ceremonies its ascension to heaven and its descent to hell. He is also the depository of group memory, and the community doctor and controller of rain, as well as the leader of the tribe, the primordial King-Priest.
Episode 10
Shamans and Mask. 26’24’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/134619290
Anima Mundi gods were orography and Nature in general, heaven, earth, water, the mountain were alive and conscious. Those are where the ancestors,just like the totem animal were, expressing the soul of the world, the Anima Mundi. The first generation gods are the gods that the Shaman brings in his understanding of experience. The gods that make the connection inner and outer. Second generation gods would be masks that represent psychological forces fear, anger, motherhood, play, desire, sex or the social bond need, and also the development of these basic actions. The third generation gods are more conceptual forces, abstractions in relation to the physical world, and the the contents of the realm of ethics.
Episode 11
Vertical and Horizontal Dimensions of Existence (Part One). 31’52’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/135028256
If we use musical art as an epistemological tool, our understanding of existence is configured according to two dimensions, a horizontal one of temporal sequentiality and a vertical one of simultaneity of experience. The science of harmony studies the aggregates of pitches in their vertical dimension, while counterpoint studies the horizontal movements of experience. Both sciences taken together show us the relationships established between simultaneous identities and their deployments in the temporal sequence. With the concept of Trikala we have shown an example of the application of harmony and counterpoint to the narrative thought of the identity of Humanity.
Episode 12
Vertical and Horizontal Dimensions of Existence (Part Two). 32’43’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/135034363
Verticality is the aggregate of the different psychological stages of the human. Consciously, most current humans live in a psychological framework that corresponds to the development of the first three generations of gods, the physical, the emotional and the mental. Some human groups, for several thousand years now, as shown by the Vedas and in general the various Non-Dual traditions, have entered into an expanded psychic experience beyond the Gods and the instrumental science that some rishis such as Aurobindo have called "Supramental" and which corresponds to the Mahar that the Upanishads discover as the Realm of Brahman. This episode starts the understanding of the different seven traditional realms approaching our understanding of the intuition of matter in term of the senses.
Episode 13
Trikala and Heptaloka. 27’54’’
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/137292929
In this episode we revisit the concept of Trikala in relation to the Human intuition and cognition of the unfoldment of the divine in succesive generation of gods. We extend the vertical dimensions to the seven realms of Being.
Episode 14
Something about Brahman. 35’ 47’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/137292988
We discuss the the fourth stage in the evolution of the Human idea of the Divine.
Episode 15
Review of Seasons 1 and 2 (Part One). 33’ 50’’
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/137293056
A general review of the two seasons of the Podcast.
Episode 16
Review of Seasons 1 and 2 (Part Two). 17’ 02’’
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/137293096
The continuation of the general review of the Podcast’s two seasons.
Episode 17
Universal Wisdom, Universal Life, Universal Soul. 1 hora 26’ 53’’
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/137295480
A more detailed topology of the first four lokas.
Episode 18
Masks, the Triple Soul and Seeds. 19’ 05’’
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/137307501
The concept of mask is discussed in terms of transpersonality related to the Platonic idea of the Tripartite Soul.
Episode 19
Seeds and Archetypes. 22’ 16’
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/137307574
Mask is a general concept that describes any structure of order superimposed upon any other entity. We continue in this episode discussing masks as belonging to higher forms of order: seeds or archetypes.
Episode 20
Round Table 1: Higher Dimensions. 27’40’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/137312677
Round Table discussions on different topics related to the Podcast.
Episode 21
Round Table 2: Beauty as a Force in Society. 53’22’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/137312706
Round Table discussions on different topics related to the Podcast.
Episode 22
Round Table 3: Perspectives on Contemporary Social Crisis 1 hour 18’ 58’’.
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/137325694
Round Table discussions on different topics related to the Podcast.
The Walk of Life. Season 3
Consciousness and Illusion.
Episode 1
Ajata I. 21’28’’.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2cZIep1PTAwsnNUnOauIO9?si=PvM4f4uBQU-U2fPS-E2VVg
The episode is an introduction to the general “leitmotiv” of the Podcast: the way of “ajata”, non-birth. This spiritual approach is considered -with its slight conceptual variations in the different traditions - as the summit of spiritual paths.
Episode 2
Ajata II. 25’ . 07”.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2W9OT0xOvjLQf5HgLCWkZs?si=eebCHET-TtyCcvVuJyiWJg
In this episode the discussion in relation to the stations of the spiritual path, ajata is considered as the dissolution of the “I am” in Parabrahman.
Episode 3
Stages on the Path of Beauty I. 18’ . 48”.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/33ATk91UqdQpB7cd15sGBC?si=wwOH21eCRKCistFmEWwtzw
We continue in these following episodes with the discussion of the stages of the spiritual path.
Reality , at every single step of the way, is taking care of you. The image, the representation that we make of the divine, of Brahman, is something that changes during our path of life. In early steps you see a difference between you and the divine. Then the devotee realizes that the beloved and him or herself is the same. The lover, their beloved, and also the action of the of loving , is one and the same thing. After that, there is a realization of Brahman as pure consciousness, Chit or Satchitananda. And then, we realize that consciousness is an illusion: that nothing ever happened ,you were never born, nothing was ever born. The Universe is empty, cognizing has not really a solid foundation. Brahman itself is an illusion.
Episode 4
Stages on the Path of Beauty II. 27’ 56”.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/12JzjftCMllgO59RXjjDC2?si=xST5G6_ESfy1fPZZLYcSfg
We continue in these following episodes with the discussion of the stages of the spiritual path.
Reality , at every single step of the way, is taking care of you. The image, the representation that we make of the divine, of Brahman, is something that changes during our path of life. In early steps you see a difference between you and the divine. Then the devotee realizes that the beloved and him or herself is the same. The lover, their beloved, and also the action of the of loving , is one and the same thing. After that, there is a realization of Brahman as pure consciousness, Chit or Satchitananda. And then, we realize that consciousness is an illusion: that nothing ever happened , you were never born, nothing was ever born. The Universe is empty, cognizing has not really a solid foundation. Brahman itself is an illusion.
Episode 5
Stages on the Path of Beauty III. 21’ . 04”.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5tVx5jMInGJFwQIgHXHe0e?si=L7z1JONHRtmSKu1T2K3Gow
Reality , at every single step of the way, is taking care of you. The image, the representation that we make of the divine, of Brahman, is something that changes during our path of life. In early steps you see a difference between you and the divine. Then the devotee realizes that the beloved and him or herself is the same. The lover, their beloved, and also the action of the of loving , is one and the same thing. After that, there is a realization of Brahman as pure consciousness, Chit or Satchitananda. And then, we realize that consciousness is an illusion: that nothing ever happened , you were never born, nothing was ever born. The Universe is empty, cognizing has not really a solid foundation. Brahman itself is an illusion.
Episode 6
Recognizing Awareness. 17’ . 59”.
https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/munozoscarenrique/episodes/Episode-6-Recognizing-Awareness-e2vh5ha
This episode is an interlude in which the concept of non-meditation is explained. The tradition from which it is explained is Dzogchen Buddhism, although references are made to other non-dual spiritual traditions.
Episode 7
Consciousness and Maya I. 25’ . 44”.
https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/munozoscarenrique/episodes/Episode-7-Consciousness-and-Maya-in-Advaita-Vedanta--I-e2vh5ka
This is the first episode to discuss the relationship between the concepts of "Consciousness" and "Maya" in the field of non-dual traditions. It begins with the tradition of Advaita Vedanta and uses a poem by the philosopher Sri Pooja which is commented on in its first seven verses.
Podcast Tambor del Chamán
Una temporada. One season
por Oscar E. Muñoz.
Temporada 1. Mito e Identidad Humana
El autoconocimiento debe partir de un conocimiento profundo de las narraciones de identidad de los grupos humanos. La persona individual y la persona social no pueden ser entendidas una sin la otra.
Self-knowledge must start from a deep knowledge of the identity narratives of human groups. The individual person and the social person cannot be understood without each other.
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Este Podcast sirve como punto de partida para el Blog y para el libro de Mitopoética: la construcción simbólica de la identidad humana. Mandala Ediciones. Madrid 2013.
This Podcast serves as a starting point for the Blog and for the book Mythopoetics: the symbolic construction of human identity. Mandala Editions. Madrid 2013.
Also on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/6l1rgjj6y8xlnYrEEpjcof
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