Liberating Yourself Into Open-Hearted Awareness with Loch Kelly, M.Div. LCSW

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Loch Kelly uses the metaphor of computer software when talking about an awareness-based way of living and operating. He says, “It’s not a matter of just having these momentary meditation states of freedom and peace of mind. You can actually live from non-conceptual awareness based on an open-hearted sense of being rather than feeling your only option is to live from ego because you’ll be safer. . . the freedom that we’re seeking is already here. It’s already installed; it’s already part of the nature of our human condition. It may even be prior to our human condition in consciousness itself. . .It is a type of awareness available that’s already effortlessly able to focus, that already feels interconnected, that feels a sense of well-being, and a kind of non-fear, non-shame, non-worry and yet is alert and clear. It is an awareness that has access to all of our memories and functioning abilities but it’s a completely different way of feeling about ourselves and therefore a different way of relating to others in the world.” He goes on to describe open-hearted awareness as a direct experience of our interconnectedness and the feeling of being held by the same essence that holds all life. It is a dynamic place that sparkles with life. Kelly says that some describe it as “a child on the first day of summer vacation.” It is beyond head-knowing. It taps into a deeper source of intelligence and wisdom. (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)

Bio

Loch Kelly, M.Div, LCSW is founder of the nonprofit Open-Heart Awareness Institute. He is an educator, licensed psychotherapist, and recognized leader in the field of meditation, who was asked to teach Sutra Mahamudra by Mingyur Rinpoche and to teach nondual realization by Adyashanti. He collaborates with neuroscientists in the study of meditation to discover ways to improve compassion and well-being. He’s an emerging voice in modernizing meditation and social engagement.

Loch Kelly is the author of:

• Shift into Freedom: The Science and Practice of Open-Hearted Awareness (Sounds True 2015)
• CD set of Meditations: Shift into Freedom: A Training in the Science and Practice of Open-Hearted Awareness (Sounds True 2015)

To learn more about the work of Loch Kelly go to www.lochkelly.org.

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

• What is the open-hearted awareness that is already part of our being
• What are the 3 stages of waking-up, waking-in, and waking-out
• What are some cautions about an embodied meditation
• What was Kelly’s early experience of opening to the vast sense of source
• What constitutes a direct recognition or “glimpse” of the inherent dimension of our true nature
• How can we discover well-being beyond our personality
• How can we function in spacious awareness as we go about various tasks in our daily lives
• How spacious awareness is not a dissociative state
• Why nondualism is not an escape from relative reality
• How open-hearted awareness is like tapping into a source of intelligence and wisdom that is beyond head-knowing

Host: Justine Willis Toms   Interview Date: 1/13/2016   Program Number: 3569

Music Playlist

From Album: Weya
Artist: René Jenkins
2014 VibeTherapy Records, www.VibeTherapy.org

Opening Essay: Track 04 Water Drops
Music Break 1: Track 03 Udu Moi Noodles
Music Break 2: Track 01 Koi
Music Break 3: Track 04 Water Drops (reprise)