A collection of audio clips, including interviews of and by Greg.
Interview by Jerry Katz, Part 1
Topics include: Early days of online nonduality. Nature of philosophical counseling. Western philosophical sources compared to Eastern paths toward enlightenment. Philosophical counseling compared to psychotherapy. Marriage. Freedom. Romantic Love. Can philosophy be taught? Advaita Vedanta. The Direct Path compared to traditional Advaita. Wisdom as a gradual happening of insights prior to enlightenment. A Direct Path exercise.
Interview by Jerry Katz, Part 2
Greg leads us in a guided imagery intended to locate the core of one’s identity as a contraction or a phenomenon within the body. Having located this phenomenon of identity, Greg proceeds to demonstrate that, “You have not found yourself as a phenomenon. You are that to which the phenomenon arises.” Musical interlude: “Chinese Twilight” by Klaus Schønning
Topics include: Anything phenomenal can’t be that to which they appear, namely the witnessing awareness. Investigating phenomena from the worldly to they bodily, the mental, to the subtle psychological. The nature of the witness as that to which phenomena appear to. Everything is understood as not you and that is the end of suffering and inquiry. Love aspect of the witness. The lower, more opaque witness discussed. The witness thins out as your inquiry proceeds. Do you actually wake up or is it just an arising in the same way the body is an appearance to the witnessing awareness? Questioning assumptions.
Buddhist emptiness teachings introduced. Why diversity is a good emptiness teaching. Hallmark of emptiness teachings. Advaita compared. Classes of dependencies. Dalai Lama’s school and approach toward communicating emptiness. Tuning into the sense of inherent existence, looking for the inherent self it points to. Failure to find it is the realization of the emptiness of the self.
Greg’s Interview of Sybil Barrington
Hamilton, Bermuda, May 11, 2015. This is an interview I conducted for Nonduality Talk Radio with Mark Anderson, the man behind the “Sybil Barrington, the Queen of Bermuda.” Mark has been a dear friend of mine for about 20 years. During the 1990’s, Mark lived in New York City, and since then he relocated back Bermuda. The underlying theme was diunitality, or the various mix of views and ways of life that Mark has encountered from his life’s journey.
Mark talks about his journey from putting on his grandmother’s clothes to get into discos for free, through learning the art of female impersonation, meeting Clarice Taylor (1917-2011, Bill Cosby’s mother on the Cosby show) and the legendary Lena Horne (1917–2010), becoming one of the 100 Most influential gay entertainers, to being an activist for gay rights in Bermuda.
During my visit to Bermuda, I learned that everyone I spoke to knew and loved Mark. From the fans of his shows in the evening, to the riders on the local bus that he drives by day. A outgoing and friendly person, Mark is considered loving and generous, and an unofficial ambassador for Bermuda.
We attended Sybil’s Mother’s Day show, held at the Hamilton City Hall, which is a venue equivalent to New York’s Carnegie Hall. The show was a fund-raiser for the Centre Against Abuse. Mark talks about this connection later in the interview.
Sit back, relax and enjoy!
Sybil Gets the Party Started
Hamilton, Bermuda, May 10, 2015. The night before my interview with Sybil Barrington, above, I was fortunate enough to attend a benefit show in which Sybil performed Shirley Bassey’s great “Get This Party Started.”