I got to a certain point where the trail goes by the side of a lake and across the lake is this huge mountain and a beautiful tumbling glacier comes from the summit of this mountain into the lake.
In about every 10 minutes,
An iceberg would calve off this glacier into the lake.
It was just extraordinary.
And this happened as I was walking and I was so shocked by the beauty of it.
Here's an experience of Tapas.
I was so shocked by the beauty of it that it totally shocked me out of my mopey frame of mind.
And all of a sudden,
This voice in my heart spoke without words and said,
I am always with you.
The most loving,
The most reassuring voice.
That's the voice of divinity,
The voice of grace,
The voice of the guru.
It's a loving voice,
A motherly voice,
A quiet voice.
It speaks in your heart without words.
It doesn't use language.
So that's the thing to listen for.
Hey there everybody and welcome back for episode 7 of Contemplate This.
This interview is with Dr.
Steven Parker,
Whom I consider to be one of my primary teachers in the realm of contemplative practices.
So I'm pretty excited to share him and his wisdom with all of you out there listening.
Dr.
Parker was initiated in the Himalayan yoga tradition by Swami Veda Bharati and was given the initiate name of Stoma back in 1971.
Not to make him feel bad,
But that was just a couple years before I was born.
So he's been doing this for longer than I've been alive.
Since that time,
He has dedicated himself to the study and the teaching of the Himalayan yoga lineage or tradition that traces back through Swami Veda Bharati and Swami Rama.
He also holds a doctor of psychology and until his recent retirement he worked as a licensed clinical psychologist in St.
Paul,
Minnesota.
In fact,
I first met Steven when I worked with him briefly in therapy,
But he quickly became a spiritual friend and mentor.
I've been fortunate to have met many wonderful teachers on my contemplative path,
And I consider Steven to be one of my primary teachers,
Especially in the yoga tradition.
I received initiation from him in 2013.
In a recent conversation,
I was trying to figure out what to name or label our relationship.
Was he my guru,
My initiator,
My teacher,
Etc.
So I asked him in one of our conversations how he would describe the nature of what I saw as a very student-teacher relationship.
He paused,
He smiled,
And then he said,
Friends.
In our friendship,
He has helped me to appreciate how yoga is not so much a specific religion such as Hinduism,
Which most people would probably identify it with,
At least in the West,
But as he calls it in this podcast,
Yoga as a science of spiritual development.
This approach forms an integral part of my own interspiritual approach to contemplative practice from within the Christian tradition,
And I'm particularly grateful to the yoga science of practice and Steven's teachings for me in that tradition for the way it helps me to fully engage my body in contemplative practice.
Personally,
I have found it to be the single most effective way to deal with a lifelong struggle with anxiety.
As always,
You can buzz over to my website at thomasjbushlack.
Com forward slash episode seven.
That's episode and the number seven with no spaces.
In order to view the show notes and find links to additional resources,
Including Steven's recent book called Clearing the Path,
The Yoga Way to a Clear and Pleasant Mind,
Patanjali,
Neuroscience and Emotion.
And for those of you listening,
I continue to be grateful for your support for the Contemplate This podcast.
As always,
You can donate to support this free media at thomasjbushlack.
Com forward slash donate and any help with writing reviews on iTunes or other hosting sites or promoting the podcast to friends via word of mouth or on social media is always much appreciated.
So with that,
Thanks for listening and let's get right into my interview with Dr.
Steven Stoma Parker.
Well,
Steven,
Thank you for being here this morning.
Most welcome.
So I always ask people to start with just a little introduction to who you are,
Where you are in the world,
What your practice or tradition that you're coming out of is.
I come out of several traditions,
Primarily at this point,
Out of the tradition of yoga meditation and out of the Himalayan tradition of Swami Rama or the Himalayas.
But I am also I often tell people a genetic Anglican.
And I'm sure we'll get into some of that history as we go along.
So I hope to save that for them.
I was a practicing psychotherapist for 35 years and retired about a year ago.
And in the last 10 years have become very much involved with teaching and training really all over the world,
Doing a lot of yoga teacher training,
Leading spiritual retreats,
Several annual silent retreats in Europe and Europe and also in South America.
And that really keeps me quite busy.
Actually,
Two years ago,
I was only home for two months.
So it was a very demanding schedule and I'm trying to give myself a little bit more rest at this point.
Greater or lesser success.
That's sort of where things are at the moment.
I still see,
I still see a few people on a one to one basis for mostly spiritual coaching,
Meditation coaching.
And that sort of keeps my interest in the change processes that people go through going.
Yeah,
And that's that's sort of,
I'll say more in the intro that I create for the podcast,
But that's sort of how we know each other as well as through those ongoing dialogues,
Which I've greatly appreciated.
Well,
We can,
Which thread do you want to pull first?
Do you want to go with Swami Rama and yoga or your,
Forget how you put it,
Your Anglicanism?
You just,
You just ask your questions.
Okay,
So,
Well,
Let's,
Let's maybe go back to like where you grew up.
What kind of,
Was there any exposure to contemplative practice,
Spirituality,
Religious tradition,
And family that kind of piqued an early interest or even early experiences that maybe you look back on as like,
Oh,
Those were pointing me in a particular direction.
Well,
I was born in in southwestern Nebraska way out in the middle of nowhere,
About 250 miles from Denver.
And our family religious tradition was Methodist.
And I was always a pretty religious kid,
I'm the eldest in my family.
But in addition to that,
There was always this interest in contemplative spirituality and in the spiritual side of religious practice that went well beyond the religion that I knew.
We lived for a while in Milwaukee,
For example,
And it was kind of hilarious.
I used to keep a little altar in my bedroom,
A little sort of Catholic altar,
And this caused my parents to wrinkle their foreheads from time to time.
I used to do things like watch the masses on TV and I even watched Bishop Sheen for Pete's sake.
Oh,
Wow.
