Okay, here we are. This is Jay Brown Yoga Talks podcast. My name is Jay Brown.

And whether you are newer around here or you've been listening for a long time,

I want to begin by saying welcome and thanks. Now, most of you know, I usually like to keep these

intros very informal. I like to spend a little time just reflecting on the week and

saying what's up. But I am going to forego this usual ritual today. And the reason is that every

once in a while, I have a conversation with someone that feels so significant, my usual, fun-loving, informal

banter feels like a waste of time.

And today is one such day.

You've already seen the title of the episode, And what I would say there is that it really

isn't just about God. I mean, it's partly about that because I'm having a conversation about

questions of spirit and consciousness. And whenever you use the word God, those inquiries become very crystallized.

And I've been trying to have conversations about this on the show.

As you know, usually towards the latter part of a conversation, I bring it up by using the word

intuition or spirit or if I can, I will will say the word God just to see if the person

I'm speaking with will go there or not and frankly very few people are open to having a conversation

about spirit and God especially among yoga teachers because I think a lot of times yoga teachers, when they're

going on a podcast and speaking publicly, you want to present yourself in a way that would

ingratiate you to the broadest spectrum of people.

So if you lead with words like spirit or God, there's a whole swath of people

who are just going to immediately write you off. But if you don't use the word Spirit or God,

and you find other language, but you hold that in yourself and they come to your class. Sometimes that person

who would have normally written you off, they have an experience in your class that actually

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