Synthesizing Spiritual Wisdom To Its Core Essence With Kyle Kowalski (Sloww)
What happens when you study many traditions
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Many of the guests I’ve had on the podcast have spoken about the benefits of going deep once you’ve found a spiritual path or tradition that resonates.
The argument is that depth results in more profound transformation than breadth.
This is congruent with my own experience after a period of spiritual window shopping.
However, I know there people out there that have a different perspective and received a tremendous amount of benefit from a prolonged, broad exploration.
Today’s guest is Kyle Kowalski, the founder of Sloww. Sloww is creating the web’s deepest guide to the world’s wisdom through an interdisciplinary study across diverse yet interconnected disciplines.
Kyle describes himself as a synthesizer. He has spent the last few years studying a tremendous amount of spiritual teachers and teachings with the goal of getting to the core essence of what they all point to.
In this conversation, we explore the distillation of his studies and how he is using what he has distilled to improve his life.
One of the main points he’s observed across teachings is that at some point, life itself becomes the practice.
I couldn't agree more. Treating life as the primary spiritual practice has always been the view in certain cultures, but in the West, it feels more common to take a more compartmentalized approach.
You do your 20 minute meditation, and then you do the rest of your life.
Having lived on both sides of this, I’ve seen how treating your consciousness evolution as a compartmentalized activity places an inherent limits on your growth.
We discuss the practicalities of making life itself the practice which is also the primary subject of the book I’ve been writing for the last 18 months.
Other interesting ideas we talk about include:
The challenges of living in the digital information age and the need for wisdom
The benefits of taking the synthesis approach to exploring wisdom
How desires and wants are often influenced by external factors and social conditioning, and it is important to question their origins
The stages of psychological development and the potential for a shift in collective consciousness
The backstory behind Ikigai and what it was originally pointing to
The concept of karma and the idea of luck can be explored in relation to one's life journey
I appreciate Kyle’s perspective and approach to deepening his own wisdom while helping others do the same.
In my own experience, I am quite grateful to have found a path and teacher(s) in RenXue to continue to go deep on. The more I’ve doubled down, the more simplified things have become while supporting transformation on a heart to heart level. Perhaps I will write more about this when I am done the next revision of my book!
Hope you enjoy this one.
Much love,
- Scott
If you liked reading or listening to this, feel free to click the ❤️ or 🔄 button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏
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Episode Transcript
Show notes:
00:00 - Introduction and Catalyst for Change
08:03 - Exploring Consciousness and Spirituality
13:42 - Life as the Ultimate Practice
31:38 - The Stages of Psychological Development
37:20 - The Potential for a Shift in Collective Consciousness
39:15 - Questioning Desires and Wants
45:52 - Money and Conditioning
56:18 - Redefining Ikigai
01:03:25 - Views on Money and Motivation
01:09:03 - The Power of Synthesis
I so agree. I say that I used to be a Type- A meditator. I'd bang out my morning meditation, cross it off the Do list, and leap back into the busyness. I think it's funny looking back at that. the real key is taking the meditative energy into the messes, yes? It certainly has been a lot more fun. Thanks for a great post.
Great chatting with you, Scott! 🙏