Meditation Jam - Celebrate Life With Guest Amy Edelstein

I’ve had a beautiful, and inspiring talk with transformation educator, author, meditation teacher, and adventurer Amy Edelstein.
Amy has recently written her sixth book where she shares her transformation trekking to Zanskar (northern India) in her early twenties.
We talk about this, about life, and also how she today works with teens to help transform the culture we live in. After you can join me in an activating energy meditation.

Music - Pod music- Steen Thottrup - Balearic Bliss. Music in Meditation by Moby LA10

Transcript

There was one group of people I met and it was a very high lama there and they were just in a tent that was made out of an old Japanese parachute,

A Japanese writing on it and there were this older man with kind of very grimy spectacles and looked like a Nyingma or Kagyu with the hat he was wearing and the different religious items he had and they invited me to stay with them.

They were trying to tell me that he was a really high lama and he had just been in LA,

In Los Angeles.

I thought I wasn't understanding them.

I had been sick and they told me that he was also a Tibetan doctor so he took my pulses which is partly how they diagnose and he gave me some Tibetan pills and then he did a puja over me.

He did some chanting.

He took out some texts and he did this whole chanting over me and then told me to go and sleep right next to them like in the middle of the tent you know and there were horses and there is a fire and there I was with four strange men.

I just felt completely utterly safe and I lay down and slept and I got better.

Hi,

You are listening to Meditation Jam with Maria René and this is a pod with Igniting Energy Meditations designed to connect you with your own beautiful inner wisdom that I like to call your pure heart and we have a lot of names on that.

Some call it the soul,

Your prana,

Your higher self and the list goes on.

So this is what I'm referring to when I say pure heart.

That infinite wise part of you that is connecting to all but also comes with its own journey,

Its own challenges and usually it is overlaid by a lot of layers where we get stuck in our mind and the layers can come from society,

Religions,

From our experiences,

Our made-up beliefs,

It can come from family,

You name it.

There is a lot and when we connect to this pure heart energy through the Igniting Meditations,

It bypasses all these and goes straight to your core so that you can open up and hear,

Feel,

Accept and have fun with your beautiful self.

And I see the energy as a key that unlocks parts of us and what I enjoy so much about this energy is that it will find you where you are right now because since we are forever expanding as I believe just like the universe,

There are new doors to unlock.

So we will all have different journeys when listening to this as well as you can come back and listen and there will be another door to unlock within the energetic theme that we are working with in the specific meditation.

And I will also invite guests to speak about their work,

Experiences,

Journeys and listen to their wisdom.

So before we start I would also like to just put out a little warning that please don't be driving while listening to the meditation or doing something that demands your full attention because I know that for some this energy can put you into a deep relaxation,

Almost like sleep.

So please no driving.

Okay,

So warm welcome and let's start this meditation jam.

So today I am really happy to share with you a beautiful talk I had with a really adventurous woman,

Amy Edelstein.

And she is a transformative educator,

She's an author,

Written six books,

She is a meditation teacher,

She is the founder of the Inner Strength Education that has helped up until today around 22 000 students in the area of Philadelphia,

Reaching that mindful and grounded state.

And she's also a co-founder of Emergency Education Press.

And one of her books is Adventures in Sanskrit,

Which I've read and it's a beautiful story about her traveling to Nepal in her early 20s,

Ended up staying in India for about four years,

Where one part was trekking around the northern parts of India and at one of her treks she went to Sanskrit,

Which is one of the oldest Buddhist areas.

And we get to follow her on her journey,

Trekking to this place,

Meeting beautiful people,

Going through transformation and meeting monks and lamas and yes,

It's just a beautiful story as well as this talk.

And she's just back from a C20 meeting in India,

Talking about education and technology.

So I'm really,

Really happy to share this talk and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

And after we go straight into a meditation where we connect to a deep core energy or a base energy.

So I hope you will enjoy that as well.

And now I say warm welcome,

Amy.

So warm welcome,

Amy.

How are you doing?

I'm doing really well.

I'm feeling,

In spite of all of the challenges or because of all of the challenges facing the world right now,

I'm feeling very grounded and inspired.

Oh,

That's so lovely to hear.

And where are you?

Are you in the States right now?

I'm on the East Coast of the States,

Philadelphia,

Which is one of the 10 largest cities in America.

Yeah.

And I know that when we had our last communication,

You were on your way to India or?

I love India.

Many years ago,

I lived there for four years and then I've gone back many times,

But I had the opportunity to go for a really short trip.

It was just 10 days and it's a very long flight from here.

So I wouldn't recommend it,

But I was able to be a participant and give a talk for the C20 meetings on technology and education.

So that was really exciting.

There were three days of meetings all about technology and security and relationship to the developing world and the concerns of technology,

As well as some of the amazing things that are already happening that are reaching people in remote areas and also enabling cultures to not just preserve their languages and their stories,

But to re-engage with them as the young people start re-engaging with their own heritage and stories through digital media,

Instead of just looking to whatever is being fed to them from large corporations.

So there's some really,

Really exciting things around education,

Around access,

Around wellness,

Mental health.

And I was there to share my insights because of my work running mindfulness and systems thinking programs with high school students in Philadelphia.

We reach,

My organization reaches about 4,

000 students a year with a three-month program,

And we've reached about 22,

000 students since we began.

Wow.

Wow.

And we are going to get into that.

Yeah.

That's what I was doing there.

And I also got to visit the ashram of Amma,

Who is Mata Amritanandamayi,

Who was named by the prime minister of India as the head of the civil society 20,

Because India is the host of the G20 meetings this year.

And it's the first time that a spiritual leader was named the host of the civil society.

So it really infuses spiritual,

Secular,

Ethical values into a conversation that was really primarily about financial equity.

You know,

The civil society was often about education,

Human rights,

And financial equity,

And it didn't always have this more overt,

Ethical,

Spiritual component.

So I really,

It was a wonderful trip.

Yeah,

Amazing.

And now I have a question that I actually had for a little bit later,

But I just feel I have to ask it because I know you've been meditating since like 70,

80s,

Something like that,

And in the spiritual world.

And I've started in 2004,

My journey,

And I can feel from just these 20,

Almost 20 years that the energy has shifted.

And of course,

It's become more popular,

It's more accepted with yoga,

Meditations and everything like that.

And I had a question,

If you could feel that it has shifted?

And I think I have the answer since you,

They are putting it into this G20 meeting.

It's like amazing.

Yeah,

It's definitely become more accepted.

I think as people start recognizing the need for inner cultivation,

Not just financial or status exposure,

Or material security,

People are recognizing that without purpose and meaning,

Then it's very hard to feel like you're doing something with your life.

And so that leads to a kind of existential angst and depression.

There's a lot of anxiety,

There's a lot of insecurity.

And of course,

That's due to the conditions of the world.

There is objectively so much insecurity with climate change.

We're in the middle of,

And Europe has had that last year,

But there are huge fires across Canada in almost every province.

The smoke is so intense that it's heading all down the eastern seaboard.

So I'm probably two hours,

Well,

I'm an hour flight from Toronto,

But from other parts of Canada,

We're further,

We can't go out of the house.

The air is yellow.

You can smell burning,

It's like you smell burning wood,

But this is coming all the way from Canada.

I'm in Pennsylvania.

It's heading all down the eastern seaboard.

So climate change is present in daily life,

Even in those areas that are due to their distance from the equator and other things are more protected.

But certainly with the extreme weather,

We're seeing that.

So we're living in times that are very concerning.

Yeah.

And also I feel it's concerning and it's also the speed is so high and there is like this million things getting hit that you have to make a choice about or you're being bombarded.

So that moment of peace and stillness is so important to just reconnect with yourself.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

But let's not jump ahead.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I've read,

Is this your latest book adventure in Sanskrit?

Yes,

It is.

It is.

I need to write a new book.

So I'm thinking about one right now.

There's another one brewing.

It'll be very different from that,

But that is my latest book.

And I read it and I loved it.

And of course you've written five books before this.

So this book is about your journey in your early twenties when you are walking in the North of India.

Correct.

And let's just go,

How did that come about?

Did you travel to India knowing you wanted to walk there or were you just like taking it as it came?

So let me paint a little picture for your listeners.

You have to go back to 1983,

Which is way before the internet was established.

There were no cell phones.

So if you wanted to make a phone call and you lived in the West,

You went to a device that was plugged into the wall.

You didn't have them in every room and then you could talk and maybe it was in your dining room in front of everybody in your household.

There was no,

This was early.

I know for our listeners,

It's hard to imagine and it feels like science fiction,

But it was only 1983.

And at that time,

So no internet,

No GPS,

No cell phone,

And you had books and you had other people.

So when,

If you wanted to learn about something,

You had to go to the library and they only had certain books.

So you had to go to the bookstore and they only had certain books.

So you were exposed to what you were exposed to.

You didn't have a vast array of everything at your fingertips.

So when I first went to India,

I never actually wanted to go to India.

I was supposed to go to Nepal for a short trip in the middle.

I was in the middle of college and I was going to go to Japan and study women's development in rural Japan because I was,

It was part of the program I was studying.

And I flew to Thailand and then other travelers told me about this tiny little country called Burma,

Which Myanmar today,

Of course,

Being a good American,

I didn't really know the intricacies of Asian countries.

So I learned a little bit more and learned that although it's a fascist regime,

It's an old Theravadan Buddhist country.

So I went there and loved it.

And then I went north of there to Bangladesh and did a little traveling.

And then I went to Nepal.

In Nepal,

I did my first 10 day Buddhist retreat in the Kathmandu Valley,

Along with some trekking.

And I loved it.

And I ended up staying three months instead of a few weeks.

And when my visa was up,

I had to go somewhere.

And at that point,

I was living in mud huts with,

You know,

Clean,

They're clean,

You know,

Clean mud floors and cooking on wood and cow dung fires and just living a very simple life.

And the Japan that I would go to was Japan of microwave cooking with 40 buttons in Japanese.

And I realized that the Japan I wanted to go to had changed a lot since the 1600s.

That was really the Japan I wanted.

So I went to India.

And I went to India in May,

When it was so hot.

It's really highly unrecommended.

And it was,

I didn't think I was going to like it.

But I had to leave Nepal.

Everyone told me it was so intense.

So I went to Varanasi,

Which is where many pilgrims go to cremate the dead.

And it's you see life and death,

You know,

The streets are crooked and crowded.

And I fell in love.

I just,

I just,

That was it.

So I spent basically the next four years in India.

And I spent 12 months of those four years trekking in the four northern states of India.

The book I wrote,

Adventure in Zanskar,

Is a two month period of that 12 months in the mountains.

So after you visited Zanskar,

You continued your trekking around?

And before.

And before.

Okay,

Wow.

How come Zanskar?

Had you been told about it?

So Zanskar,

I learned about when I was living in India,

I heard about,

I learned a little bit more as I started to study different forms of Buddhism and do different Buddhist meditation.

But Zanskar is one of the oldest Buddhist,

It's the oldest Buddhist valley in the world.

It was Buddhist before Tibetan Buddhism.

Now it's a Tibetan Buddhist culture there.

They had the Bon religion,

Which was basically a Buddhist,

You know,

Mixed with different animism and,

And other tribal religions.

Zanskar is the western most part of the Tibetan plateau.

And it's been very protected.

Up until recently,

It was it was not open to tourists until 1976.

And I was there in 83.

So only seven years after it was open,

It was still very sheltered.

And the reason why it wasn't open is if you look at a map,

You'll see it's like a little finger that sticks up on top of India.

And to the left to the west is Pakistan,

Above that is Afghanistan and Tajikistan,

Russia,

And then China on the eastern side.

So for global security,

It was really important for those borders to stay closed.

So it missed a lot of the cross cultural globalization that was happening in the 50s,

60s,

70s.

So it was it was really untaught,

You know,

It was very much the way it had always been when I was there.

But I could see it was going to change really fast,

Which it has,

It's,

There's now a road that goes through it.

And once you put a road in it,

Things change very quickly.

But I went because I felt it was it was a Buddhist valley.

And I wanted to immerse myself in that culture,

I wanted to see what the people lived like.

And I really wanted to just allow myself to absorb a lot of the Buddhist and Hindu teachings that I'd had at that point,

Having studied before I went to Asia,

And then while I was in Asia,

And I thought that the best place to do that would be in a valley where there are as many monks and nuns practically,

There's probably one monk to every four people there.

Oh,

Okay.

Yeah.

And you met a lot in reading your book,

I just had this feeling of,

There was this underlying vibe of happiness or joy or light for in the people you meet.

Yeah,

I've never,

To me,

The time there gave me so much faith in what's possible for humanity.

And I think it's really good for people now to recognize that it really is possible to live sustainably to live in harmony,

To live a culture of generosity to share values of compassion.

And it creates so much joy there.

Most people think of Buddhist monks,

And they think of people who are like very reserved,

Kind of like the stone Buddhas,

They don't laugh,

They don't move.

The Zanskaris are really playful,

You know,

They're running,

They're laughing,

They're pinching,

They're shoving,

They're singing,

They're dancing,

The women are very forthcoming and,

And strong.

And there's,

They're happy,

Deeply happy,

Without it being dependent on externals,

Because the life is very hard.

There,

There's a very short growing season.

So it's the food is very monochromatic,

In a way you have barley flour,

Some greens,

Some meat from yaks and goats.

It's very simple life,

Just very simple life.

At that time,

Everyone wore the same outfits and homespun wool,

You know,

Either white or dyed maroon or black with a sash and they're very good because you can tuck things into them.

And yeah,

And everyone,

Everyone wore pretty much the same thing and ate from the same and the villages could be as small as 15 houses.

And everyone made sure that everyone else was okay.

And of course,

There is gossip as in any culture,

But generally,

There was this sense of unity.

People not in each other's business,

Because there's something very detached about Tibetan Buddhism.

And that culture,

People have a very ingrained sense that there will be consequences of their actions in this life or in the next.

And so they recognize it's not whether somebody else sees you do it,

But your karma is going to follow you in this life or in the next life.

And it brings that sense of innate recognition of consequences,

Good or bad,

And the desire to create positive consequences.

And that is so nice,

Because that's,

I believe what I am doing,

It's all about opening our communication with our heart.

And that is just it.

It's like,

It's not about whether someone else will blame you or judge you.

It's about yourself and how you want to live and your conscience or being accountability of your own life in a way.

Exactly,

Because we all have those things that we said that we feel badly,

And they stay with us.

That's consequence.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Nobody has to tell us,

But it's on our mind.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And do something.

And I was also so you did this journey in your converse.

My Nikes.

Yeah,

I,

Yeah,

I didn't have gear.

I didn't have a tent.

I just had a sleeping mat that was insulated,

Just a thin sleeping mat that was insulated and tennis shoes.

It's amazing.

It's crazy.

Amazing.

When you're 21,

You can do a lot of things.

Yeah.

You know,

A bunch of decades later,

You look back and you think,

Wow,

I'm glad I did it.

It was extraordinary.

But I can't,

I can't really recommend that.

But also you walk away by yourself and that must also have been,

I mean,

You're facing weather,

You're facing the route,

Everything.

And you must have gone through some so many transformations on your journey.

And was there one or a few that stood out for you that you really grounded for the rest of your life?

There were a few things that really changed me.

And I think that the biggest thing that changed me was,

Was a really powerful experience I had crossing one of the very high passes.

It was 5100 meters,

Which is,

I don't know,

16,

000 feet or something.

And I got to the top and I was so exalted,

You know,

Everything just fell away and I felt completely at one and free.

And I realized that was a really powerful experience of dissolution and unity and non-separation.

But what happened out of that was I realized that any desire to cross another pass,

To reach another milestone,

To have an experience like I was having again,

Was grasping in desire and was moving me away from the fact that I had experienced beyond a shadow of a doubt,

The profound unity at a level of the fabric of being or consciousness or spirit,

However you want to call it.

But the essence of life is non-separate,

Even if you go down to the,

You know,

Some molecular subatomic level.

And I realized when I was on top of the mountain that I didn't need anything.

That experience had happened,

That glimpse had happened,

That glimpse was enough.

And so it's not that I didn't have hard times in my life after that,

You know,

Because that was basically 40 years ago,

Right?

So we have a lot in our lives.

But as I always like to say,

A glimpse of infinity is still infinite.

You can't measure it,

You can't desire more because when that opening has happened,

It's happened.

It doesn't need to happen again because it's already open.

And that really,

That never left me.

That never left me.

And even,

You know,

Throughout many life challenges,

Health-wise,

Relationships,

Meditation groups,

You know,

Whatever it is,

We all have them,

The aging parents.

Fundamentally,

I knew that in the deepest part of my heart,

I was not just that I was okay,

But there was a wholeness that wasn't impacted by everything that was happening in life.

That is,

I've just got my goosebumps all over my body and it's really,

That's so,

Oh wow.

Yeah,

And how amazing to have had that just coming from within and realizing all these things and carrying it with you through life.

And as you say,

Things happen along the way,

But when we have that anchor,

It's easier to go through it in a way,

It's not as dramatic.

Yes,

Exactly.

Exactly.

Really,

Really beautiful.

And I was thinking also,

When you met these monks,

Was there any specific meeting that got stuck in your mind?

When I lived in India,

I always wanted to meet teachers.

So I always tried to go and,

Like I said,

You couldn't look them up on the internet and you couldn't check out a YouTube before.

You just had to go and maybe you'd like them,

Maybe you wouldn't,

But somebody told you.

But when I was traveling,

When I was walking in Zanskar,

There wasn't anyone I was looking to meet particularly because it was so remote.

I didn't know about any of them and they didn't speak English.

My Hindi was the best of my languages of the area,

But not at a dharma level.

I had studied a little Tibetan,

I knew a little Urdu,

But I couldn't really converse with the lamas at that level.

So I didn't know,

I just knew I met some amazing people.

But there was one group of people I met,

And it was a very high lama there.

And they were just in a tent that was made out of an old Japanese parachute,

Japanese writing on it.

And there were,

You know,

This older man with kind of,

You know,

Very grimy spectacles.

And,

You know,

He looked like a Nyingma or Kagyu with the hat he was wearing and the different religious items he had.

And they invited me to stay with them.

And they were trying to tell me that he was a really high lama.

And he had just been in LA,

In Los Angeles.

Of course,

I didn't,

I thought I wasn't understanding them.

And I had been sick,

And they told me that he was also a Tibetan doctor.

So he took my pulses,

Which is partly how they diagnose.

And he gave me some Tibetan pills.

And then he did a puja over me,

He did some chanting,

Took out some texts.

And he did this whole chanting over me,

And then told me to go and sleep right next to them,

Like in the middle of the tent,

You know,

There were horses,

And there is a fire,

And they're,

You know,

Having salt butter tea and sampa,

The barley flour.

And there I was with four strange men,

I just felt completely,

Utterly safe.

And I lay down and slept,

And I got better.

He cured what I did that the Tibetans,

The way they diagnose,

They feel that the spiritual is easiest to change first,

Because we have control over that it's harder to change.

Like you go to the physical,

Like pills and other things after you exhaust the spiritual possibilities,

Because this,

It's the opposite of us is that we could change that first.

So the interesting thing was,

About two years later,

I was in the States doing some retreat in the States.

And I was at Deer Park Center in Madison,

Wisconsin,

And with beautiful teacher there,

Geshe Sopa.

And I was showing them some,

Some of the photographs from Zanskar.

And somebody there saw this llama.

And he said,

Oh,

My God,

That's llama so and so I saw him a few years ago in LA.

Oh,

That's like,

Yeah,

Amazing.

Go figure.

Yeah,

You know,

There were wild things like that that happened.

But what you see there,

And what it shows you is that our judgment of who is spiritually refined is based on a lot of external props.

And are we willing to trust and extend the benefit of the doubt to people?

Just because of our own experience?

You know,

I felt so much love,

Like not personal love.

But I felt like I was when I was in that after he did these mantras over me,

And I was lying under this wool blanket.

And my head was on one of the horse saddles was not particularly comfortable.

But I was lying there.

And I just felt like everything just started to get sort of misty or blurry.

And I felt like I was just being held in this cradle of love.

I didn't know who they were.

I mean,

It could have just been anyone,

You know,

Traders or travelers that I wasn't understanding.

You know,

We were speaking a little bit of Hindu Hindi,

A little bit of Urdu,

A little bit of Zanskar,

A little bit of Tibetan.

I didn't really know if we were communicating,

But I had to go on my own experience.

You know,

Later on,

I found out Yeah,

Indeed,

He was,

I forgot his name.

And I haven't been able to get find somebody who knows who he is.

But in the early 80s,

There weren't that many llamas who were traveling that you had to be fairly well supported.

Yeah,

Your lineage.

And,

You know,

Miracles like that can happen.

You can stumble on people,

What was the chance of walking for a couple months and being sick and then stumbling on a llama who happens to be,

You know,

A really revered medicine person in the middle of Zanskar where nobody else,

You know,

I,

The next day,

I probably didn't see anybody else for two days after that.

Yeah,

Literally no one.

So you wonder,

You know,

How you wonder about the synchronicity of all these things.

Yeah,

Sometimes I just get get these pictures,

Imagine that,

You know,

If it's ourself or who is,

It's just like,

Putting all these pieces together for us to fit in in life.

And it's just having a blast.

It's like,

You're gonna meet that person there.

And yeah,

It's truly amazing.

And meant,

Of course,

To be.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

So you do this,

This journey,

And then you say you stay another two year or something in India,

And then you go back to the States.

How is that just coming back to this modern lifestyle?

Well,

I was very much committed to a meditative lifestyle.

So when I left India,

I spent a couple years in Europe with a collective that was pursuing spiritual awakening and spiritual teaching.

And then we eventually founded a center and,

You know,

A meditation space in America.

So my life for the next 30 years was still,

Well,

Up until I moved to the city,

You know,

Around 2013,

Was very much involved in studying,

Practicing,

Interviewing different spiritual teachers,

Writing for a spiritual magazine.

Yeah,

So that was very much all of my life,

You know,

Creating an organization with other people that were interested in the same thing.

So yeah.

Yeah.

And now you have,

I don't know how long,

But you've done this work that you're doing for the teens.

When did that start?

That started in 2014.

So it's nine years now.

Oh,

Okay.

Yeah.

Because that is like such a lovely way to give back to the society and starting with everyone at a really young age.

So did you feel like,

Oh,

The teens are the ones I want to go?

Or did you more slip into that area?

Yeah.

Similarly,

I kind of slipped into it.

I actually,

I hadn't set foot in high school since 1979 when I graduated.

Yeah.

And I graduated in three years instead of four years because I really didn't like high school.

Oh.

And I did my best to finish as quickly as possible.

I was smart.

I did well,

But I was also,

It wasn't fulfilling to me.

I wanted to engage more at a level of what's life about.

I didn't just want to learn world history for no reason.

So high school,

And I hadn't been back to high school.

I didn't work with youth.

So I really wanted to work with young adults,

Older in their twenties,

Because once you're post-college,

You're really able to think more fully and more deeply.

But I had a friend whose wife was a guidance counselor and he pressured me for about six months to do a program with her because she really wanted to bring some meditation into the schools.

So I felt,

The more I thought about it,

I felt like it was a really good opportunity because I didn't want to just do something for my own livelihood.

I wanted to build something that could have an impact culturally and school's a good place to do it because we have 200,

000 school children in Philadelphia,

But from K through 12,

We have 47 high schools.

So you have that many students.

And if you can embed these tools of mindfulness,

Self-care,

Social-emotional learning,

Exploration of consciousness,

Systems thinking,

Evolutionary philosophy,

If you can embed that in the school,

Then you can really start influencing a lot of people by exposing them.

I don't mean personal influence,

But by exposing them to these tools in a way to explore,

In a way to value the inner world,

You can really reach a lot of people and you don't have to market to individuals.

It's not,

You don't have to sell tickets.

All you have to do is work with a school.

And some of our schools,

Like one school that we're in,

We work with 600 students every year,

Just in one school.

And we're in nine schools.

Most of the schools are smaller,

But we reach 3,

000 students a year.

Our biggest year,

We reached 5,

000 students a year with a three-month program,

Meeting them weekly for an hour every week in their classroom.

So they think,

Oh,

This is a class.

This is part of my English class.

It's part of my history class.

That means it's something I'm supposed to learn.

It's not some weird fringe thing that,

You know,

Hippies do,

Or new age people do,

Or rich white suburban people do,

Because I'm in the inner city,

Which is mostly lower income and mostly black and brown students.

You know,

So students from Latin X countries,

African American students,

African students,

Southeast Asian immigrants,

You know,

Chinese residents.

So it's very mixed in terms of the population.

And,

You know,

I wanted to normalize this across all these cultures.

I love it.

It's so amazing.

And what a beautiful work and idea.

And what I understand,

You've written a book also so that,

You know,

Others can adopt it at the schools.

Is it a book for teachers or is it for like anyone?

It's for regular people.

It's called The Conscious Classroom.

Yeah.

And it's really,

It's not a how-to book.

It's the ideas and the principles and,

You know,

The philosophy and the stories behind the program.

So it's very readable.

And then you also,

I think I read you,

You have an app as well.

So,

I mean,

That's like for the time and for the young people also because they use their phones.

So what's the app called?

The app is called Inner Strength Vibe,

V-I-B-E.

And it's designed for teenagers.

And it sort of parallels our curriculum,

The way we teach.

So there are,

There are meditations,

There's some,

You know,

Activities and exercises all about 300 million year evolution of the brain and what's happening in the teen brain,

Things about connectedness and friendship building.

There's a check-in so you can journal about your inner weather.

There are affirmations.

It's really fun.

It's,

It's,

It's,

Yeah.

And I should say also,

I will put links in the text below here for everyone now listening so that you can check because I think it's amazing and just have a look and see.

Yeah.

The app is free.

It's entirely free.

There's no paywall.

There's no credit card because you can't,

You know,

When you're working with teenagers,

Not everyone has access and especially lower income,

They may not have their own credit card,

Even if you provide it free,

If you,

If you have that barrier.

So there's no barrier.

I have to open it up.

I can,

I don't know if it's open to the Scandinavian countries,

But I can,

It is in English.

We don't have a translator for all the languages.

We're still small.

So I should say most of my listeners are actually outside Scandinavia.

Okay.

Yeah.

So,

And,

And in Scandinavia,

English is like our second language because no one speaks our language.

So yeah.

And also you have a,

You,

You have a publishing house or you publish books as well.

I,

I do.

I,

My husband and I have a publishing in a press,

A small press called emergence education press.

And I I'm guilty.

I started it and then I gave it to him.

So I can't take credit,

But we have something like 65 titles that are spiritual,

Philosophical,

Art space.

And they're really,

They're,

They're really designed for people who are living a spiritual life and they want to be in an ongoing discussion about things.

And so these are,

There's some really great insights and books.

Yeah.

So please take a look and I'll,

We'll have the link in the show notes,

But I have to give him credit for it all.

Credit to your husband.

Yeah.

So it's so amazing.

Lovely.

I just feel so warm talking to you.

You have such a beautiful energy and I don't want to keep you too long,

But I have three questions that I ask all my guests.

So the first one is what is the most positive thing you take with you from what you've been through?

And either it could be the adventure in sense score,

Or if there's something else that you just feel like something positive that you,

But you,

We,

We have been into that with them,

Your experience with that was wow.

But maybe there is something else.

Well,

I think building on that experience,

But I really do feel that we're deeply and profoundly interconnected and interconnected doesn't mean separate.

It means there's a process,

There's a flow and whether it crosses time or it crosses space,

We're influenced by the imprints of our cave person ancestors.

So that influence is living in us.

So that means we're not separate from them.

There's,

You know,

A hundred thousand years in between,

But we are living now with some of the survival instincts,

Some of the bonding instincts from that.

So there are lots of ways to think about it,

But deeply knowing that everything is in this continuum.

And when you really reflect on what that means,

It means that the implications in the future,

The causes in the past are all exerting a pressure on the present.

So in some way,

They're here.

And if you take it too literally,

You can pick it apart,

But if you really let yourself feel into what that could mean in,

In a slightly different way,

That I'm aware of the consequence,

You know,

That whatever I do is going to set something in motion.

So whatever that momentum is,

It's already in some way,

Part of the present and same with the past,

Then you start to feel not so alone,

So isolated,

Not so alienated.

And so many people are just desperately alone and looking for connection and looking for where they belong and not able to find a place where they feel at home.

And when we let,

Part of that is,

Is because we're looking for that sense of belonging outside ourselves.

And when we recognize that it's all process,

And so there is fundamentally no way to extricate ourselves from that process,

We could never be separate from the process that is,

Then you really,

It takes away some of that just existential fear and loneliness.

Yeah,

That's beautiful.

And I also think that it also takes us to be more in the now because it's so easy to just chase the future with our plans and everything.

But if it's like just getting us more into the moment.

So and when do you feel most like yourself at peace and relaxed?

What environment or what are you doing or?

I'm either,

Well,

There are a lot of things I love.

And I'm,

In some ways,

I'm not that picky.

But I have to say,

India is really my happy place.

When I was there just recently,

And,

You know,

Surrounded by the chanting and the bells and people talking about spiritual things,

I just felt like I could let go of,

I could just be myself without,

You know,

America is very,

Especially if you work in the education world,

They always try to separate religion,

Spirituality from education and their fights over it.

So I'm always trying to express exactly the depth of what I mean,

But in different language.

And so when I can be in a place where I don't have to do that,

It feels I just get really happy because that love of God and spirit and human evolution is what makes me happy.

I also love I love being outdoors.

I love watching animals.

I love really good vegetarian food.

Even though I'm not a great chef,

I really appreciate it.

So that makes me happy.

You know,

Just beautiful,

Beautiful food with beautiful colors and a lot of love in it.

Yeah,

All that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was actually gonna ask you as well,

Because I mean,

Nature is it's such a source of energy.

And I feel when you're in the forest,

Or you're taking a walk there,

It's like one I'm just by the sea,

I'm on an island,

So I have water around me.

And I know when I'm around mountains,

It's such a I don't know,

It's both Mother Earth and the universe when you were walking.

Did you?

Did that impact you?

Did you feel it in like,

Yeah,

The I love the mountains,

The Himalayas,

I love the mountains so much.

I mean,

They felt alive and animate.

And I felt Yeah,

I just felt like they were my friends.

Hmm.

So I guess it's like this caring father,

Or I don't know,

Someone just taking care of you.

It's like,

You've,

I feel safe in a way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would sometimes when I would walk on the steep cliffs,

I would just run my hand along the edge of the mountain,

Just like,

Kind of reading the mountain and saying hello to the mountain and caressing the mountain as I,

As I walk.

Yeah,

They have a presence.

Yeah,

For sure.

And they talk,

They're grumbling all the time.

They're always moving.

You know,

They're big and steady,

But there's shifts and rock tumbling,

And you feel them adjusting.

And you're like,

Oh,

They're not.

They're living in some way.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the last question then of these three,

So what is the joy for you today?

And if you were to put the color on it,

What color would you put?

So a joy for me today is having this conversation.

I'm really enjoying it.

It's really a lot of fun.

And if I would put a color to it,

It would be that like,

Deep,

Like yellow,

Orange,

You know,

That really,

The sunflower orange,

The sunflower yellow,

That's so yellow,

It's almost,

You know,

It's almost caramel.

Yeah.

Okay.

So thank you so much.

Also,

I just,

I wanted to say,

I saw you have,

You're doing storytelling and you have on your web page,

Or there's like a free gift that people can do some tool for storytelling.

Yes,

Exactly.

There's a,

There's a free e-course about writing your own epic journey.

So I wrote,

You know,

When,

When I wrote my adventure in Zanskar,

It was really beautiful to be able to take something that made such a difference in my life in such a positive way.

And everybody has those stories.

Yeah.

So this is,

You know,

People always say,

Oh yeah,

I want to write something,

But I'm not a good writer.

I don't know where to start.

So this is a free e-course.

So you can start,

Just start.

Yeah.

And actually my last guest is an artist,

Irish artist.

And he was also talking about how storytelling helped him get over addiction in a therapist.

So it's,

I think for everyone,

It's like,

And sometimes we need to rewrite our story.

Definitely.

Definitely.

Because when you're going through things,

You haven't learned the lessons yet,

But when you're reflecting back,

You know,

You can,

You can write about them with the wisdom that you have now.

So important.

So Amy,

Beautiful.

Thank you so much for joining and I'm looking forward to your next book.

Thank you.

I have to figure out what I'm going to write,

But I have that like restless feeling inside going,

You're really busy,

But you should just write a book.

Yeah.

That's what I do when I'm too stressed.

I create a book project so that,

You know,

I have something that is my creative outlet that just makes me happy.

I love writing.

So thank you so much.

And for joining this and have a beautiful day.

Thank you so much.

What a pleasure.

Thank you.

Have a good day.

Bye.

So again,

Thank you so much,

Amy,

For joining me on today's pod.

I'm really,

Really happy and what an adventure,

What a life and what a way to give back into society.

Truly inspiring.

And I hope you all go and check out our links that is in the text below.

And now if you are up for it,

Then join me for today's energy meditation,

Where we are tuning into a beautiful,

Deep,

Calming,

Warm,

Loving energy that is touching our base,

Our core,

And for us to open our communication with this.

So either if you press pause and just have a little break or join me straight away by getting seated comfortable.

Close your eyes.

And let's do some meditation,

Jan.

So we start by taking a few deep breaths.

Then imagine that way you are sitting or lying down.

There is a pillar of red healing earth energy that is coming from Mother Earth.

And it's going up through you,

Around you,

Covering your body inside and out,

And continuing up and out into the sky and the universe.

And we now have this red healing earth energy keeping us grounded on this journey.

And imagine that there is a similar pillar of divine bright light,

A universal energy that is coming from above and it's going down through you,

Around you,

Covering your body inside and out,

And continuing down into Mother Earth.

And we now have this universal energy keeping us balanced on this journey.

And we take another deep breath.

Then imagine that there is a string of energy that is moving through your body.

And as it is moving through your body where you are right now,

It is opening your chakras,

Your energy pools,

One by one,

Effortless.

And you don't have to know what or where they are,

Just know that they are being opened.

And if you do know,

Then you see how they are opening,

Soft,

In the perfect pace for you.

As this string of energy is moving through your body,

And maybe you feel it,

See it,

Sense it,

Just let whatever comes to you be the right image at this point.

And with every breath,

Feel your body relax.

Let your mind go.

If there are any lingering thoughts or on repeat,

Just allow them to come and then float away without doing anything other than observe.

And at the same time,

This beautiful string of energy is moving through your body.

And at the same time,

There is a similar string of energy moving through Mother Earth in the same way,

Mirroring your energy and the opposite.

It is the same,

It is connected,

And it's moving in the same pace,

The one that's relaxing for you.

And as it is moving through Mother Earth,

There is another vibration that is added,

A deep,

Strong,

Infinite vibration.

And it's moving through the Earth,

And it's moving through you,

Like an ancient,

Infinite energy,

Filled with love,

Wisdom,

Connection to all that is.

And we are just staying here a little bit longer,

As this energy is finding its way with you,

With your surroundings.

And just let whatever image,

Feeling,

Sound,

Sense that comes be the right one at this point,

Without trying to control or force.

Just sit in this vibration as it moves through.

And if you don't hear,

Feel,

Or see,

Or get anything,

Don't worry,

Just by you being here,

Listening to this.

Your energy is doing the work for you,

So you can just relax and keep on following the journey,

As we are melting into the vibration of oneness,

Of unity.

And there is so much love,

Compassion for you,

Your life,

Your struggles.

And there is so much joy in this energy,

Ready to be,

Experience.

And it's almost as if we are in an energy of the beginning,

An energy that is connected to all.

And it's pouring in through your body,

Into your day or life.

And all you have to do is relax,

Stay open,

And we take another deep breath,

And we slowly start to move back into the space where you started.

And if you like,

You can set your intention to keep this flow going throughout your day and night.

And you can come back and reconnect as often as you like.

And you can start to come back into your body.

And we give thanks to Mother Earth and Father Universe and the Higher Self for joining us today.

You can start to come fully back,

Start to move your hands,

Your feet,

Your neck,

Maybe clap your hands and stamp your feet.

And I thank you for listening.

Sat Naam.

So warm welcome back.

And yes,

That felt like a very different energy.

I absolutely love doing these igniting energy meditations.

And sometimes there is a theme,

Or I'm tuning into you as a person if I'm working as a coach.

Or when I'm doing these pods,

I usually just ask the energy to take us where the energy likes to take us for the day.

And so the energy could be or go anywhere.

And today I just felt like we tuned into this beautiful,

Deep,

And I don't want to say ancient,

Because all energy,

Or I feel the energy is timeless.

So if we say ancient,

Then we put the time on it.

But it just felt so like an original or base energy,

Maybe that's the word,

Base energy,

That we tune into one that's like there for our foundation.

And when we have our foundation in place,

Then it's easier to build and mold and form our other layers that we have in our energy.

So I felt like today we were working with our base,

Our core,

Beautiful energy that of course is connected to all that is.

It's like our origin in a way.

And I hope you felt it.

But for me,

It felt really deep without being heavy.

And it was strong and yet light.

And it was just so filled with this amazing sense of love and unity.

So a really beautiful energy.

And I'm truly excited to see how that will come up and show itself in our day and life.

And I do think that we are,

And I've been talking about this for the last pods,

But there has been a shift.

And I know that my last meditations has been about our higher self.

And I feel like this is part of that,

That we are in a way going back to our roots.

We are stepping into our core to grab our core,

To get access to our core and allow it to expand out past our ego,

Past our walls or beliefs or our layers that we put on ourselves.

So we are stepping into the core of our being.

And I'm sure there will be more meditations because it really feels like this is what we are doing right now,

Or at least this first half of the year.

So who knows what will come next.

But right now,

It's like we are molding or not molding,

We are communicating and connecting with our deep,

Deep,

Deep core that is beyond.

So I really hope you enjoyed it.

And also that you enjoyed my talk with Amy and what a beautiful and adventurous woman.

It was so lovely speaking to her and truly inspiring to find that peaceful stillness in our day and life.

And also to allow ourselves to feel part of the world and this energy that is all around us and within us and find that unifying connection,

As well as still keeping our unique structure.

Because I believe we are all here to do our thing,

We have our purpose,

We have our DNA,

Our structures of what we are here to do.

And for me,

It's not one or the other.

It's like we have that and then we are also part of the wholeness.

So thank you so much,

Amy,

For joining.

And as I said before,

If you want to read more or get in contact or get Amy's books,

Then you have links below in this text.

And also if you are listening to this as it's being released,

We are just about to hit summer or it's already started here in the Northern Hemisphere.

So up until today,

I thought that I don't know if there will be any specific program or I will do anything specific this summer in terms of energy work.

I haven't got anything.

And then,

Of course,

Today it just kind of dropped on me.

So there will be a summer boost energy program.

I am about to get more information about it from the energy.

So it will be out probably when you are listening to this or shortly after.

And it's going to be the only thing I have so far.

It's that it's going to be a small package and easily accessed for you to do whether you are working or on vacation and just lifting that vibe.

But I will have more information,

As I said,

From my guides and my energy this week,

I hope.

But that is about to come.

Yeah.

So I think that's it for today.

And I thank you so much for listening.

And I hope you have a beautiful fortnight until the next time.

And again,

Thank you so much,

Amy.

Sat Nam.

You have been listening to Meditation Jam with Maria Rine.

And I am so grateful that you have joined today with your energy.

If you liked it,

Please remember to subscribe,

Hit the like button and leave a review if there was something specific that you enjoyed.

And you will find more links in the text below from my guests and also to my social media if you like to follow me there.

So thank you again for joining.

And I hope you have a beautiful day,

Week and month.

Sat Nam.