FTP095: Michael Taft – The Path of Self-Development and Spiritual Awakening

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In this episode, our guest is Michael Taft, a long-time meditation teacher, author, and founder of Deconstructing Yourself blog and podcast. Michael has had 35 years of meditation practice in multiple traditions, and decades of teaching experience, including teaching meditation to the folks at Google. He has extensive experience in both Buddhist Vipassana and Hindu Tantric practice, and currently specializes in a secular method of teaching, rooted in neuroscience.

In this interview we talk about the stages of personal development and the awakening path, deconstructing reality, and the benefits of a regular meditation practice.

You have to, first, tiptoe in meditation experience carefully, not to knock yourself off track, and second, make sure to build in the crucial feature of equanimity - @OortCloudAtlas Click To Tweet

In This Episode of Future Thinkers:

• The definition of spiritual awakening
• Why the illusions of self and world are evolutionary traits
• What are some of the recognizable stages of spiritual awakening
• The difference between structural hierarchy of nature, and dominator hierarchies in societies
• Why people confuse spiritual awakening with sainthood, and the issue with spiritual superiority
• What are some of the effective methods and techniques for spiritual awakening
• What is the attentional blink and why long-term meditators have it on minimum level
• The downsides of spiritual awakening
• What is spiritual bypassing?
• Striving for an awakening experience and falling into the trap of self-improvement
• Are more people awakening around the world today?
• Culture-specific context of meditation traditions and how to adapt them to the modern world

The overarching delusions of reality come down to extremely useful survival mechanisms for human beings, that help us turn food into babies and adults over and over again. - @OortCloudAtlas Click To Tweet

Mentions and Resources:

• A Universal Theory of Awakening, an article by Michael W. Taft
• Deconstructing Yourself – Michael Taft’s Blog and Podcast

The end point is when you are dead, and in between now and when you are dead, there is always something new to learn. There is no such thing as being fully done awakening. - @OortCloudAtlas Click To Tweet

Recommended Books:

• The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works by Shinzen Young
• The Mindful Geek: Secular Meditation for Smart Skeptics by Michael W. Taft

More From Future Thinkers:

• FTP089: Deconstructing Your Identity and Why Do It
• FTP083: Duncan Trussell – Decentralized Organizing Principles in Society, and the Evolution of Consciousness
• FTP060, 061: Don Roberto – Ayahuasca and Shamanism
• FTP039: Jordan Peterson – Archetypes, Psychedelics and Enlightenment