Welcome to Commune, a global wellness community and online course platform featuring some of the world's greatest teachers.

We are on a mission to inspire, heal, pass down wisdom, and bring the world closer together.

This is the Commune podcast where each week we explore these ideas and practices that help

us live healthy, connected, and purpose-filled lives. You can learn about our courses,

our community, and everything else we do at one commune.com.

Now, I have always been interested in the relationship between spirituality and politics.

On one hand, the separation of church and state is a core tenet in our society,

an idea that is rooted in ensuring religious freedom and also in the repudiation of monarchical Europe.

On the other hand, our founding documents are littered with references to the Almighty.

Indeed, our very inalienable rights as citizens, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,

are endowed by the creator, capital C. I have often wondered if this separation has discouraged our government and its officials from

embracing the spiritual principles that might lead to a more fair, equal, and compassionate nation.

Indeed, the gospel of most major religions share an empathy for the poor, the displaced, and the downtrodden. Over the years,

I've organized a number of events under the moniker Mindful America. I was keenly interested in what

policy could look like through a spiritually inspired lens.

What would a mindful health care policy look like?

What would a spiritually informed climate change policy resemble?

What would be the planks of a larger mindful platform?

For these events, I brought in folks like congressmen and presidential candidate Tim Ryan,

citizen well founder, Carrie Kelly, criminal justice reformer Mike De La Rocha, yoga teacher, and activist

Sean Korn. But nobody crystallized my understanding of the inner relationship between politics

and spirituality more than Marianne Williamson,

...