The latest The Magical World of G. Michael Vasey podcast is now out in the usual places (Apple, Youtube, Soundcloud, Spotify etc.). I talk to Michael Coleman about his spiritual journey and his opening of a retreat in Lincolnshire. Michael is an old business colleague of mine that I worked with for many years never knowing he had any interest in such matters at all and vice versa.

It was an interesting conversation that covered a lot of ground. Please do give it a listen and visit Michael’s website. Here is an excerpt form one of the blog articles there on the topic of desire…

“The process of meditation, the experience of it, has you realise that you are not the grasping ego. In deep meditation you find that you are not a person at all in the sense of “me and mine” – my history, my family, my life, my desires. The realisation gradually gets stronger the more you meditate. So that after some time you begin to see that the story of me, the story of my life is just that  – a story. As you become more familiar with the experience pure being, the grasping, needing to possess ego loses its grip. It ceases to seem like reality. After some time it even seems funny that we were so deluded by an obvious trick of the mind.  And so gradually little by little we return to our natural state of being where taking delight in the present puts us in a permanent state of inner peace and joy – even when we meet a difficult situation the state of inner being stays peaceful and joyful.

By this gradual realisation process the longing part of the desire mechanism fades away. We take pleasure in what we have in the present. We take pleasure in imagining the future – our desire is no less potent but we no longer need it – no longer must have it – no longer feel miserable if we don’t have it. This is true equanimity. This is true non-attachment to desire. No need to cultivate fake moods, dullness and unnatural suppression of life.“