“My approach and my goal in my religious practices is to have a mystical experience. I do not believe that I need to be a perfect human being before I have that mystical experience. I believe that you can have a mystical experience as an imperfect human being.” – Paul Grilley
Everyday Sublime: Shadow | Light | Unity
The Everyday Sublime podcast explores a full spectrum spirituality. Each week Josh will release a dharma talk, and each month Josh will publish a long-form conversation with a thought-leader from the field. As Stephen Batchelor says, "the mystical does not transcend the world, but saturates it."
Available in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, Castbox, Overcast, PlayerFM, Beyondpod, PocketCasts, TuneIn, and (almost) anywhere else you listen to podcasts!
Paul Grilley: The Evolution of Consciousness
“If the snake is still in you, then you have to transmute that into a higher function. And that’s where philosophy and introspection are incredibly important.” – Paul Grilley
Yin Yoga and COVID-19: Josh Answers Your Questions
In this special episode of Everyday Sublime, Josh Summers answers the six most important questions about how Yin Yoga can help you stay safe and healthy in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn valuable ways to raise the vibration of your frequency and heal the collective consciousness of humanity.
Paul Grilley: Suffering and Samadhi
“Technique can only take you so far… you gotta have the courage to go beyond your tradition and step off.” – Paul Grilley
Paul Grilley: The Tao of Paul
“The goal of yoga is to abide in your true nature… If you are not abiding in your own true nature, then you are identifying with the vrittis in your consciousness, and that is suffering.” – Paul Grilley, paraphrasing Patanjali
Stefanie Arend: Energetic Sequencing in Yin Yoga
It’s important as practitioners and teachers that we don’t fall into a kind of “alternative reductionism” when we apply principles of Chinese Medicine to how we work with our bodies and minds in Yin Yoga. Stefanie Arend and I explore how we think about the interface between Traditional Chinese Medicine and Yin Yoga.
Stefanie Arend: Meridian Massage
Meridian massage, meridian tracing and tapping, cultivating an intuitive listening to the needs of your body and mind with Yin Yoga. These are some of the themes Stefanie Arend and I discuss as we explore her new book, Be Healthy With Yin Yoga.
Stefanie Arend: Be Healthy With Yin Yoga
Yin Yoga supports a mechanism of self-healing by opening up stagnations and blockages within the fascial network. This in turn allows for the body’s energy to circulate in an unimpeded manner.
The Point of Vanishing
In many of the traditions I’ve studied, the sublime is to be found literally hiding in plain site. To quote Stephen Batchelor, “the mystical does not transcend this world, it saturates it.” In the season opener of 2020, I reflect on the podcast’s name, the (slightly new) direction of the podcast, and make a key suggestion for your time of winter hibernation.
Winter: The Sacred Portal
When we become stripped of our illusory perceptions of being separate, we can experience two simultaneous feelings. The first is a deep and liberating truth of interconnection and love. But we may also feel a profound sadness and mourning for all the energy invested in protecting and defending a self-image that was never actually there in the first place.
Dr. Timothy McCall: A Story of Healing
Dr. Timothy McCall looks at how illness can be a real moment of opening to lots of unfinished business, and we consider all the various levels of healing that can occur when we start to open to things that have been walled off to our conscious minds.
Dr. Timothy McCall: Holism vs. Reductionism in Medicine
In this episode, Dr. Timothy McCall speaks about the problems inherent in trying to evaluate the efficacy of alternative therapies from a reductionistic model. He also discusses the problems of implementing alternative therapies with a reductionistic mindset.
Dr. Timothy McCall: Starving Cancer
Intermittent fasting is a popular fitness trend to improve insulin sensitivity, decrease inflammation, promote cellular autophagy, and help manage weight. But what if fasting can also reduce the chances of getting cancer and help support one through cancer treatment? Dr. Timothy McCall shares his story of fasting through cancer therapy.
Dr. Timothy McCall: When the Doctor Gets Cancer
In the first part of my interview with Dr. Timothy McCall, we talk about what it was like for him to receive his cancer diagnosis and how he thought about approaching his treatment, bringing together the very best of Eastern and Western medical modalities.
Matthew Remski: Lighting a Path Forward for Safety and Transparency
The themes of power abuse, toxic group dynamics, and victim blaming are important themes for anyone who occupies the space of a yoga mat or a meditation cushion in the modern yoga landscape. Matthew Remski explains what reform might look like as yoga culture moves forward.
Matthew Remski: The Dynamics of Deception and Enablement
The Jois family held tightly to its narrative of legitimacy until, well, they didn’t. And this is what is both eerie and fascinating about the recent developments in the Ashtanga community. Here we see, in real time, the efforts of an organization to “brandwash” its unfortunate history.
Why Train in Yin Yoga?
Although Yin Yoga looks quite simple, being an effective Yin Yoga teacher is not so simple. There are five primary reasons someone should invest in proper training if they plan to teach others the practice of Yin Yoga. Let’s go over each of them individually.
Summer Break: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
Before pausing for my summer break in August, I highlight some of the top episodes of the year so far, giving you a distilled recap of some of the conversations to catch up on or review again. I also announce the fall line-up and include suggestions for your summer reading.
Matthew Remski: Exposing Yoga’s Culture of Sexual Abuse
For over three decades, Pattabhi Jois sexually and physically abused his yoga students, mostly women. This abuse happened in plain sight. To understand how this was possible requires an exploration of toxic group dynamics, methods of deception, and networks of complicity. Matthew Remski explains this all in his book, “Practice and All Is Coming.”
4 Principles for Designing a Better Relationship with Our Digital Devices
In our yoga and meditation practice, we often value the cultivation of attention and awareness. But how might we better design our environment to support the development of attention? How might this redesign reinforce the intentions of our practice?