Food for Thought 2: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Rebels with Michael Lindfield & Joseph Carenza
Release Date: 08/18/2025
"There Is No Such Thing as Failure" with Michael Lindfield & Joseph Carenza
Musings From The Mount
What if everything you've been taught about failure is wrong? This conversation examines three interconnected concepts that completely reframe how we approach life's challenges: crisis, failure, and perfection. Drawing from the Alice Bailey teachings and Agni Yoga, the discussion reveals that crisis isn't something to avoid, rather it is the essential mechanism through which consciousness expands and wisdom emerges. On this week's episode of Musings From The Mount, Michael Lindfield joins the conversation with an examination of crisis as opportunity rather than disaster. The Chinese characters...
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"Instinct, Intellect, Intuition" - The Three Ways of Knowing with Diana Lang & Joseph Carenza
Musings From The Mount
How do you know what you know? Most of us have been confusing three fundamentally different forms of knowing our entire lives: instinct (the body's survival mechanism), intellect (the mind's analytical tool), and intuition (direct knowing that bypasses thought). Understanding the difference isn't just philosophical, it has immediate implications for every decision you make, from choosing a career path to knowing when to trust someone. On this week’s episode of Musings From The Mount, Diana Lang joins the conversation and begins the discussions with an exploration about instinct, that primal...
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Holding Space in "Polarized Times" (Politics and Spiritual Community) with Michael Lindfield & Joseph Carenza
Musings From The Mount
How does a spiritual community remain inclusive when the world is tearing itself apart along political lines? This conversation tackles one of the most challenging questions facing spiritual centers (and people) today: how to avoid alienating half your community when political polarization feels stronger than ever. The discussion doesn't offer easy answers or retreat into spiritual bypassing, but instead examines the deeper principles that might help us navigate this tension. The episode begins with a fundamental reframe: what if the two poles we see as enemies are actually necessary partners...
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The Bird With Two Wings: Creative Tension vs. Division with Michael Lindfield & Joseph Carenza
Musings From The Mount
What's the difference between creative tension that births new possibilities and destructive polarization that tears everything apart? Recorded during the Libra full moon, this conversation examines how the same dualistic forces that allow the universe to express itself, positive and negative poles creating illumination, can become weapons when we forget we're part of a unified field. The discussion begins with a fundamental principle: the One expresses itself through dual aspects, like spirit and matter forming a continuum. Think of a light bulb, it requires both positive and negative poles...
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"All Books Are Prison Houses" - The Paradox of Spiritual Literature with Michael Lindfield & Joseph Carenza
Musings From The Mount
What happens when the very tools we use to share wisdom become barriers to understanding it? This conversation tackles a profound paradox: how language, the vehicle for transmitting knowledge, can actually limit our access to deeper truths. Starting with Krishnamurti's famous moment of walking on stage, saying "turn within," and walking off—leaving audiences both frustrated and enlightened—the discussion explores why sometimes the most profound teachings come not from books, but from direct experience of life itself. The episode examines a fascinating teaching from the Tibetan master DK...
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"What Would Love Do?" with Diana Lang & Joseph Carenza
Musings From The Mount
How do you know when your desire to help is actually making things worse? This conversation tackles one of the most challenging questions we face in relationships, community, and our response to world events: the difference between helping and interfering. Drawing from personal recovery stories and spiritual wisdom traditions, it examines why the most well-intentioned help often falls flat—and sometimes even damages the very relationships we're trying to heal. The discussion begins with a provocative metaphysical principle: "Don't help unless you're asked." This isn't about becoming...
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The Golden Handcuffs of Materialism with Michael Lindfield & Joseph Carenza
Musings From The Mount
What happens when we examine money not as numbers in a bank account, but as crystallized life energy? In a conversation recorded during the wild fires in Los Angeles and addressing questions about the nature of rebuilding, this episode tackles one of the most emotionally charged topics in spiritual circles: our relationship with money and what it reveals about our deeper values. This isn't about financial advice or investment strategies—it's about understanding money as a spiritual test and discovering what lies beyond our addiction to accumulation. The discussion opens with a fundamental...
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When The Universe Calls, We Are The Response with Michael Lindfield & Joseph Carenza
Musings From The Mount
What if you've been approaching questions and answers backwards your entire life? This conversation starts with a simple observation about music—that call and response pattern where the universe makes the call and we become the response—and unfolds into a profound exploration of how wisdom actually develops through lived experience rather than accumulated information. It's not about finding the right answers out there somewhere, but about becoming the answering itself. The discussion examines the crucial difference between being smart and being wise: intelligence might help you navigate...
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Are We Teaching A.I. About the Heart with Prof. Wade Chumney, Michael Lindfield & Joseph Carenza
Musings From The Mount
What happens when artificial intelligence meets ancient wisdom? In a conversation with Ethics & Business Professor/Author Wade Chumney that bridges cutting-edge technology with timeless spiritual principles, we explore one of the most pressing questions of our time: not just what AI can do for us, but what our relationship with it means for human consciousness itself. This isn't another tech debate about job displacement or safety protocols—it's a deeper inquiry into consciousness, relationship, and what it means to be human in an age of emerging intelligence. The conversation tackles a...
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Food for Thought 4: Go Your Own Way with Strength and Silence with Michael Lindfield & Joseph Carenza
Musings From The Mount
In the conclusion of our four-part journey through "Ponder on This," we tackle perhaps the most challenging territory yet: what it actually means to live as conscious agents in an evolving world. The conversation opens with a powerful reminder that we're living in "the age of the revelation of the mysteries" - not through more books being published, but through those moments when ancient wisdom suddenly clicks and becomes lived experience rather than just intellectual understanding. Central to this final exploration is the counterintuitive teaching that forms - including our bodies, emotions,...
info_outlineIn this continuation of our exploration through "Ponder on This," we dive deeper into some of the most challenging and relevant teachings for our current moment. The conversation opens with a powerful reminder that these ancient wisdom teachings come with no demand for blind acceptance - they're meant to be tested through practice and personal discovery, not adopted as dogma.
The episode tackles one of the most provocative statements in the collection: "The world problem is essentially a religious problem." Rather than dismissing this as controversial, the discussion unpacks how religious thinking - the tendency to turn beliefs into rigid dogmas - has infiltrated every area of human discourse, from politics to personal relationships. This isn't an attack on faith traditions, but an examination of how the mind's tendency to crystallize ideas into unchangeable truths creates the very conflicts we see playing out globally.
Central to the conversation is the fundamental principle that "energy follows thought" - and the recognition that millions more people are now thinking and focusing their mental energy than ever before in human history. This creates both unprecedented opportunity and responsibility. Every thought we think, every mental pattern we reinforce, contributes to the collective consciousness that shapes our shared reality. The episode explores how this understanding transforms daily life from passive existence to active participation in creating the future.
Perhaps most practically, the discussion reveals how we can move from having rigid "points of view" to developing flexible "viewing points" - the difference between defending a fixed position and sampling multiple perspectives to gain holistic understanding. This shift from separation to synthesis offers a pathway through the polarization that characterizes our current moment, suggesting that the resolution lies not in one side winning, but in rising to a higher level where apparent opposites can be reconciled and transformed.
Meditation Mount and HeartLight Productions are pleased to present Musings from the Mount – a weekly podcast with host Joseph Carenza and guests in conversation exploring a range of topics drawn from the Ageless Wisdom teachings. New episodes every Monday.
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