Gurumaa Dipti Rajkumar Baswar, lineage holder and teacher of Shivoham Tantra, joins us to speak about mantra, sadhana, the inner Guru, and kundalini shakti. In this episode we'll hear the traditional perspective of the movement of the soul from multiplicity to oneness as mapped by Adi Shakti. Gurumaa will share perspectives on what Tantra is, and how attitudes of receptivity, listening, and going with the flow can help us on the path.

In this episode, Paramita Oliveira and I start on a micro-but-mighty odyssey. The terrain is tracing the ego's development as a series of solutions and defense mechanisms. We'll examine the structure of the personality, which was built around a being in development who didn't have the protection or cognitive capacity to navigate life's difficulties. In this episode we start to recognize these solutions and defenses as being a distortion of our essence.

The same way a prism separates white light into the full spectrum, the slings and arrows of this human experience fragment our light. Our fragmentation isn't moral, its fundamentally human, but it can leave us feeling disconnected from ourselves and separate from our power. We will deepen in coming episodes and create a map that will lead us back to our wholeness using what in us is most unconscious and reactive as a doorway.

We welcome psychologist Paramita Oliveira for the initial conversation of a ten-part series on the study of the self. In this episode we outline a methodology that unites spirituality with psychology and understands the difficulties that present in our lives to be the result of a distortion of our essential energy into systems of defense. We'll set up for the study with an overview of the how childhood wounds create a prism effect, distorting our light, and how essential both study and feeling are to the rescue of our essence.

What are the stories that we are telling ourselves about what it is to be a person? Host Laura Carrotti speaks on the need for context and coherence in our lives. She offers her working definition of spirituality and considers why the road to transformation requires us changing the story and practicing something different.