Saturday, December 27, 2014

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #172 - 27DEC14

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream
This week's podcast features:
  • First Hour: A conversation with David Richo, Ph.D., M.F.T., psychotherapist, teacher, workshop leader, and writer who works in Santa Barbara and San Francisco California. He combines Jungian, poetic, and mythic perspectives in his work with the intention of integrating the psychological and the spiritual. He is the author of more than 15 books, including his most recent title The Power of Grace: Recognizing Unexpected Gifts on the Path, as well as How To Be An Adult in Love, Daring to Trust, Coming Home to Who You Are, How To Be An Adult in Faith and Spirituality, Being True to Life, When the Past Is Present, Mary Within Us, The Sacred Heart of the World, The Power of Coincidence, Shadow Dance, When Love Meets Fear, and How To Be An Adult.

  • Second Hour: Mystical Positivist co-hosts Stuart Goodnick and Robert Schmidt elaborate on the themes of Grace raised in the first part of the show, and they also reflect upon and discuss some of the most memorable Mystical Positivist interviews from 2014.
More information about Dave Richo's work and interests can be found at:

Saturday, December 20, 2014

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #171 - 20DEC14

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation with Stuart Perrin, an American spiritual master of Kundalini Yoga. Stuart Perrin has been quietly teaching small groups of students around the world for the last forty years, and he is a direct disciple of Swami Rudrananda, more commonly known as Rudi.

    Stuart’s training with Rudi was filled with profound and ancient teachings, “streetwise yoga”, humor, and more than a few sword strokes to the ego. After four years of intense training Stuart became a teacher in Rudi’s lineage in New York and eventually Denton, Texas. Besides the formal technique of deep inner work, a technique that uses the mind and breath to strengthen the chakra system and build a link between the spiritual practitioner and Higher Creative Energy in the Universe, Rudi taught Stuart the necessity of using spiritual work in everyday life.

    In February 1973, Stuart and Rudi were in a plane crash in the Catskill Mountains, a plane crash that took Rudi’s life. “I never feel he is gone,” Stuart wrote of his guru. “When I wish to be with him, to learn from him, I just open my heart. He is there, sitting, smiling, sharing his teachings. The moment he died, I felt his soul pass into me.”

    Stuart moved back to New York City in 1980 and continued his work as a spiritual teacher. He continues to train many more people, and has meditation centers in the U. S., Israel, and Brazil.

    A well-known and respected author, Stuart has published The Mystical Ferryboat (1983), Leah (1988), A Deeper Surrender: Notes on a Spiritual Life (2001), Moving On: Finding Happiness in a Changed World (2004), an essay for Kundalini Rising (2009), and most recently Rudi: The Final Moments (2011).

More information about Stuart Perrin's work and interests can be found at:

Saturday, December 13, 2014

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #170 - 13DEC14

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation with Traktung Yeshe Dorje. For 23 years Traktung Yeshe Dorje has transmitted the essence and methods of Tantric Buddhism’s science of transformation. During that period he has guided the Tsogyelgar spiritual community outside Ann Arbor, Michigan. Traktung’s root Lama was Thinley Norbu Rinpoche and he is considered a tulku of Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje. Traktung has started a school for yogis on the Tibet border in Guru Rinpoche’s hidden land of Pemakö and lends great support to an orphanage school in Varanasi, India.

    Traktung does not commercialize dharma by charging for teachings offering quick hit, drive through, workshop self help seminars as if the great questions of life can be bought and sold in the market place of spiritual materialism. Instead he teaches in the style of the ancient sages who simply offered teachings and example of living realization to those with a true thirst. He is willing to meet with, and discuss the spiritual process with, sincere, earnest people and he does offer two retreats a year. Traktung teaches from a combination of deep personal realization of the methods of the Nyingma lineage of Tantric Buddhism and a profound knowledge of the world’s spiritual traditions. He is the author of two books: Eye to Form Is Only Love: A Journal of 100 Days; and his most recent title, published in 2014, Original Innocence.

More information about Traktung Yeshe Dorje's work and interests can be found at:

Saturday, December 6, 2014

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #169 - 06DEC14

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation with Swami Chetanananda. Born and raised in the Midwest, his life was transformed, in an instant, upon his first meeting with his guru, Swami Rudrananda (Rudi), in New York City in 1971. He studied with Rudi until Rudi’s death in 1973. At age 24, after Rudi’s passing and at Rudi’s direction, he became the head of the ashrams established by Rudi. Swami Chetanananda is now the abbot and spiritual director of The Movement Center, based in Portland, Oregon. Like Rudi, Swami Chetanananda works with students to awaken their creative energy and support them in the process of its unfolding. He teaches eyes-open meditation, a direct transmission practice in which teacher and student share the experience of the underlying unity of all things.

    In 1978, he took sannyas with Swami Muktananda, and took the name “Chetanananda,” meaning “the joy of consciousness.” In the course of his studies with Muktananda, he began to explore the teachings of Kashmir Shaivism. Recognizing that the treatises written by the practitioners of this tradition described much of his own experience, Swamiji studied Shaivism in depth. He has collaborated with scholars and sponsored translations of many Shaiva texts. He has also studied the Shije (Pacification of Suffering) teachings of Padampa Sangye because he came to understand that Padampa Sangye’s teachings and Shaivism shared a common origin. For the last 15 years, Swami Chetanananda has continued to study the tantric tradition in all its forms from the plains of North India to Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley and the steppes of Tibet. He has sought out adepts who preserve powerful lineages. With the experience he has gained, Swami Chetanananda has expanded and refined Rudi’s later teachings, which Rudi called his “tantric work.”

    The fundamental method he teaches uses the power of the breath to circulate the creative energy (kundalini) and intensify its flow so that tensions and obstacles are dissolved, leading to a more refined awareness. As Rudi did, Swami Chetanananda emphasizes the importance of working deeply over time.

    To complement his spiritual practices, Swami Chetanananda has a working knowledge of a range of healing systems and methodologies, from the time-honored traditions of hatha yoga and acupuncture to the more modern techniques of homeopathy and osteopathy. Swami Chetanananda is the author of several books on spirituality published by Rudra Press, including Dynamic Stillness, Vols. I & II ; The Breath of God; Open Heart, Open Mind; Choose to Be Happy; Will I Be the Hero of My Own Life? and There Is No Other.

More information about Swami Chetanananda's work and interests can be found at: