The Human Experience · Episode
Episode 55 – Stuart Sovatsky Ph.D.
A conversation with Stuart Sovatsky Ph.D.
Stuart Sovatsky PhD (AB, Ethics/Psychology, Princeton University; PhD, CIIS), was first choice to co-direct Ram Dass’s “prison ashram” and first in the US to bring meditation to the homeless in the 1970s that…

The full conversation continues here.
Episode field notes
Show notes
Stuart Sovatsky PhD (AB, Ethics/Psychology, Princeton University; PhD, CIIS), was first choice to co-direct Ram Dass’s “prison ashram” and first in the US to bring meditation to the homeless in the 1970s that led to being selected to the 1977 Princeton University Outstanding Alumni Careers Panel. Copresident of the premiere professional organization for spiritually-oriented psychologists in the US, the Association for Transpersonal Psychology since 1999, he was a board trustee for the California Institute of Integral Studies for 20 years and in 1999, recipient of its Most Outstanding Alumni Award 1978-2008. He has consulted with the Chair of the Association of Unaligned Nations of the World and been in private audience with the current Perfect Master of Meher Baba Sufism in India.
In 2006-08, he was initiating co-convener of the forty country World Congress on Psychology and Spirituality in Delhi, India, supported by the Office of the Dalai Lama and where BKS Iyengar, SS Ravi Shankar, Jack Kornfield and Robert Thurman keynoted. Author of Eros Consciousness & Kundalini (US, India and Russia) Words From the Soul, Your Perfect Lips (US and Russia) and numerous articles on romantic love, ideal marriages and families, the therapeutic use of admiration, spirituality of infancy and Buddhist dissolution of suicidal thoughts. A serious scholar-practitioner of tantra yoga with NUMEROUS academic publications and university presentations throughout the US, India and Europe, he now leads couples retreats and trains therapists in the US and in Russia and is a faculty member at Moscow Psychoanalytic Institute, Lifelong Marriage and Kundalini Yoga.
In this episode we welcome back Dr. Sovatsky to the show further diving into the fundamentals of love, relationships, tantra, kundalini and much much more. This is an incredibly powerful episode STAY TUNED for the end of the episode; Stuart performs a chant for us that will absolutely blow you away!
Editorial Reviews
“I highly recommend this book to any spiritually minded person or couple looking to awaken their creative potential, deepen their life partnership, heal the emotional scars of past relationships, or mature their emotional-sexual being beyond the impulses of adolescence. This book would be a valuable asset for any couples therapist or marriage counselor who wants to offer a yogic spiritual component in their practice.” (Merikah Robertson, Common Ground, September 2014)
“Advanced Spiritual Intimacy is a cultural critique, tantric sex manual, and an astute primer in verbal and nonverbal communication. While most psychologists dismiss romance as infatuation, Sovatsky’s brilliance is to take it seriously as the ground of a highly disciplined but unique Kundalini-inspired approach to erotic intimacy.” (Seth Farber, Ph.D., author of The Spiritual Gift of Madness)
“Stuart Sovatsky’s well-researched and experimentally validated teachings, shared in Advanced Spiritual Intimacy, will surely be a great resource for empowering married couples around the world to find true spiritual happiness, as well as helping contemporary yogis and yoginis actually achieve the exalted goals of yogic adepts of ancient times.” (Robert Thurman, Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies, Columbia University,author of Inner Revo)

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“Stuart Sovatsky’s Advanced Spiritual Intimacy is a tour de force. He takes us beyond the texts to demonstrate how the ancient path of spiritual growth may extend across a whole lifetime. This book expands our Western hermeneutic of tantra toward engendering a paradigm shift in the methodology for all who have been teaching its ways for years or decades. And as years and lifecycles unfold for persons of all walks of life, this study may help to honor the depths of Indian marriage from the depths of SanÄ tana Dharma itself.” (Purushottama Bilimoria, Ph.D.; Chancellor’s Scholar, UC Berkeley; post-doctorate fellow, Oxfor)
“This book reveals tantra’s most central and powerful aspect: converting sexual energy into a higher, consciousness-altering vitality. Stuart Sovatsky’s vast knowledge and four decades of practice of tantra yoga and his lifelong work as a relationship therapist is a perfect combination for his book Advanced Spiritual Intimacy. A must read for all who aspire to a spiritual way of life and are wondering just where sex fits in.” (Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D., author of Sacred Sexuality, and Brenda Feuerstein, author of Traditional Yo)
“Through decades of pioneering service projects, writings, and his kirtans arousing of Kundalini, Stuart has uplifted the academic and spiritual landscape of the West. For those who long to meet a lifelong yogi, master, beloved of Lord Shiva, you will find such a one in the pages of Advanced Spiritual Intimacy.” (Swami Adi Narayan, author of The Beloved: A Song of Eternal Love)
“Advanced Spiritual Intimacy is an excellent book that will help couples and individuals to grow and master themselves.” (Frédéric Luskin, Ph.D., author of Forgive for Good and director of the Stanford Univer)
“Few people are as well positioned as Stuart Sovatsky to contribute to the West’s understanding of yoga and tantra, and he has done so with Advanced Spiritual Intimacy. This book adds a new dimension and another level to the understanding of our ultimate potential.” (Philip Goldberg, author of American Veda)
“Sovatsky’s work brings the depths of India’s spiritual path of marriage and family love to the Western world in keeping with India’s core vision of Vasudhaiva kutumbakam–the world is indeed one Family–and reveals the devotional dimension of yoga in the truest voice of the Indian spiritual soul.” (Sunil Saini, Ph.D., president of Indian Association of Health, Research, and Welfare)
“The extent of Sovatsky’s knowledge is breathtaking. He makes an important and persuasive reframing of Brahmacharya as an ‘inner marriage’ rather than celibacy, with yoga as its own love affair with prana. He completely transforms what is currently understood as ‘practicing yoga’ and provides a fresh way of re-envisioning intimacy for anyone on a spiritual path.” (Ira Israel, marriage and family therapist and yoga teacher/therapist)
“Sovatsky guides us with a master’s hands to open the portals of devotional worship in yoga and in love. His book is a tour de force, beckoning lovers deeper into the seed mysteries of devotion and worship.” (Tina M. Benson, M.A., transpersonal/Jungian-oriented coach and founder/creator of the Soul Speaks Pr)
“The Age of Aquarius begins right now with Stuart Sovatsky’s new sexual (r)evolution. Get out your surfboards and anchor yourself on the crest of the wave with Advanced Spiritual Intimacy. Don’t forget to enjoy the ride!” (Lisa Paul Streitfeld, cultural critic/philosopher, Huffington Post Arts)
“Stuart Sovatsky’s Advanced Spiritual Intimacy bravely walks the cutting edge of tantra and blasts us open into spirit consciousness, while enlivening us to the potentiality of matter and flesh.” (Katie Silcox, author of Healthy Happy Sexy: Ayurveda Wisdom for Modern Women)
“Sovatsky’s forty years of spiritual practice, erudite scholarship, and clinical experience radiates throughout Advanced Spiritual Intimacy. This book shows a way to lifelong love that lives within the hidden depths of tantra and the inner marriage of yogis, saints, and sages.” (Ken Wilber, author of The Fourth Turning: Imagining the Future of an Integral Buddhism)
“Advanced Spiritual Intimacy is like an attic trunk packed with treasure-garments, with gowns and capes that must perhaps be shaken out and worn, gotten accustomed to, before their full value is revealed.” (Craig Comstock, Huffington Post Blog, June 2014)
Find Stuart Here: https://stuartsovatsky.com/
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Ideas worth returning to
Quotes
Five substantial excerpts from the published transcript, lightly edited for clarity without changing their meaning.
“The sexual-liberation movement removed important guilt and repression, but it overpromised what freedom alone could provide. More sexual opportunity did not automatically create intimacy or durable connection. My work draws on yoga and tantra to ask how erotic energy can mature into disciplined attention, devotion, and a relationship that deepens over time.”
From the conversation“Western psychology often mapped development only as far as adolescent sexual maturity and the ego that pursues desire. Yogic traditions describe further development—a kind of puberty in the heart and brain, movement beyond an exclusively ego-centered life. Human potential includes what may mature after the body becomes fertile.”
From the conversation“Very few therapists begin a marriage session by asking, ‘What do you love about each other?’ Treatment usually starts with the problems. Yet a sincere compliment changes posture, expression, and attention immediately. Remembering admiration does not deny conflict; it restores the emotional resource a couple needs in order to work with it.”
From the conversation“When a partner describes hurt, the first response can be, ‘Thank you for telling me,’ rather than an argument about whether the complaint is fair. That simple sentence is empathy instead of defensiveness. Learning to receive difficult information without counterattacking can add years to a relationship.”
From the conversation“People plan a business carefully but often expect a new relationship to succeed without design. Couples can be equally creative: spend meaningful time together, learn a practice, preserve shared memories, express gratitude, and make deliberate gestures of care. Intimacy becomes more durable when it is treated as something worth practicing.”
From the conversation
About the guest
Stuart Sovatsky Ph.D.
Stuart Sovatsky PhD (AB, Ethics/Psychology, Princeton University; PhD, CIIS), was first choice to co-direct Ram Dass’s “prison ashram” and first in the US to bring meditation to the homeless in the 1970s that led to being selected to the 1977 Princeton University Outstanding Alumni Careers Panel. Copresident of the premiere professional organization for spiritually-oriented psychologists in the US, the Association for Transpersonal Psychology since 1999, he was a board trustee for the California Institute of Integral Studies for 20 years and in 1999, recipient of its Most Outstanding Alumni Award 1978-2008. He has consulted with the Chair of the Association of Unaligned Nations of the World and been in private audience with the current Perfect Master of Meher Baba Sufism in India.
Beyond the conversation
Selected work
Official sites, books, research, and institutional pages verified for this guest.
The complete conversation
Transcript
Archival transcript · Published on the canonical episode page
This archival source does not include reliable passage timestamps or consistent speaker attribution. The wording and any labels below are preserved from the original transcript page; no speakers or timing have been inferred.
So and yoga today disguises this fact because all the awesomeness are done by the memorization by imitation but for much longer time is some scholar says 700 you. You discontinuities yoga was much more prevalent than got a hold is like I say we siblings movements that they call charismatic religions of the religions where people are shaking like holy rollers shake or like a belly dance felt this is not just an entertainment of Middle Eastern restaurant for something that is,
of the sexual is limited That can happen spontaneous kundalini is active in the female body and that those cultures they feel that they’re not just feeling excited about the woman they feel that the off of feminine energies which is connected to fertility answer the source that have been energized by some start to see of the energy of sex as it keeps changing goes up the spine causes the body shaking about this worldwide RELIGIONS and this very good simultaneously moves the energy throughout the whole body and what I’m saying it much worse the gland… And matures it so much that we have to eventually met with the body goes through a quickly puberty that comes after the teenage so I mean that
be an interesting question on a dating site is your kundalini activated guests know serving these compounds a talk about the brain DMT specifically seem to me as I can evolution compound when you’re when you’re activating your pineal gland it seems like you’re orienting yourself to participate in your own evolution through activating these more subtle bodies but to play devils advocate here bit what would you say the dangers of of activating your kundalini would be well you know what what are holistic way that would be very little danger because of your character would be maturing your value system off how how fairly wireless other people are your family history will be going well childhood
know the culture such of our is ours people can take up a practice substance feel just like a lot of the heavy breathing and not pay attention to our my lifestyle illustrated people can do something relief force was energies to awaken and that forced a way of waking what has side effects for many people that this is not a balanced awaken ago be?
Was first to publish on the last about 1970 and 71 the dinner forced awaken describes in great detail is sitting for about 1516 years woefully talk to you soon dancing for example just was, all himself into this some kind of what and as a result see his system was too hot willfulness creates heat just like too much vicinity not much will happen will be lethargic that he was way over on the side of being very forceful then describes how that was he was pot all the time and I have been difficult and that was in India so he you’re not like many things going to a therapy for him in the sport want to go into in a way that balances lots of aspects of just you and them I’m imagining all become is
into this right now suddenly getting incredibly aroused but Ed anything you go into soon yoga postures how how important are these us on Eisenman draws mother done with them what the motive of devotion or like dancing then verify not just a lot of playful way but the joy of being devotional grateful of the magic of the ability to provide a sort this really the result is a bodily expressions can come from an emotional place for them to do technique and that unlocks their home I called the deeper significance and just ways of on kiss sex practices of the x-axis efficient it’s on this is it’s out of and enjoy each other and the Internet since the drug the Scripture same is also time and that
when the time sufficiently aroused for months and years at a time it will is will trigger a kind of orgasm the body of so is fingertips could have types of orgasm what if you’re a certain type of joy seeing the understand.
But I’m there’s JOYFUL ways instructed get just liberated from the guilt ridden sex to express is the partner is doing it with you that was the of from my book without from an experience of a partner and it was just that magical interactivity and is filed with hand gestures with gestures just out of the body from where there been waiting to come out longtime interesting i.e. you know I I want to talk about marriage and relationships just because it seems like society has changed and i.e.
in a more more through my parents and my friends who are married and have kids now and I I feel this pressure to get married or moving to you know of a serious relationship and how how important is it is that to that were talking about it is interesting is wonderful wonderful questions on we have to imagine this marriage is the is the prize instead of something that will overwhelm us to fall in love is probably all agree to find someone who falls in love with you all of what is just a wonderful wonderful thing the the the the possibility that that that type of love could be strong enough to never exhaust through 15 years of ups and downs money issues around one city to another argument
difficulties communicating the possibility that will that you wanted so-called honeymoon. As we saw it on in love with last a lifetime in only get better year after year what you started the age of 20 excited to jump right and curses on each other but that this will be able to go through all these different stages problem is void only mapped out human development to the two major and said that’s what sex is is not much of a change after that that all sciences since then and better how much you have a five about the pineal gland of oxytocin all of that first one I’m in publishing about will over 30 years now but you know takes a while to change of message paradigm about that maturity how far
can go but the dispute is what going to happen kind of partner would be like to start the
years of the of 20 oh so instead of feeling pressured by culture in which we would be conflict the expectations by the washing is almost completely the opposite dating sites the of just facilitate people that I sent different people that nobody waste any time because they feel that energy of attraction in my book hopes to show people hundreds of different ways to overcome problems communication problems sexual problems problems with money problems with in-laws parents become parents oneself issues about aging coming.
Old 4056 is always tries to map all difficult issues that show how is beautiful can be difficult than what some some of the pressure is much more about enthusiast caught someone needs to tell us to do not is is is a simple on a hot day people were good job and you have any advice for a person we meet my last three dates were terrible and these are way to the more ambiguous kind of site I essentially I’m looking for someone who is is as aware as I am and I just feel like relationships are so ambiguous nowadays and people just kind of are looking for one thing to sex and the sacred the notice of of the experience is gone and I just I feel like an alien on of our planet and I’m just it’s so
frustrating and I don’t know and maybe you can give me some advice medicine (another it away from your very hard the hopes of from a very long life is of most of the visits much more intellectual and I really touch as I can feel here me to call love with someone who will problem with you and create a separate container for the just seem frivolous and we knew great respect for the woman to make the woman feel that circle of connection you you ready for an the sadness is but I know some people are very scared and scaring each other and so much beyond the first or second day is people are calling it quits before you get started that is America stop this for 40 some years I saw this beginning to
happen it’s funny because match.com going to help people it also be people so many possibilities that alone is the only way that if you lots of possibilities by stop of the first first deposit people are entering to with somebody people in the dismissive each other of sometimes just because they happen other people on their on their website they wanted check out and by the time you come back to the other one is frustrated or they find somebody will other someone to just woke up steps and that’s one not some kind fragment some not I’m not sure if you’re a fan of Salvador Dali the surrealistic the elite 1920s he did a very interesting approach you he made a paining called the great masturbator
and you can you can see the evolution of of how we view sex and and units in the 20s and just you’re looking at this this guy is faces down with women and I mean really interesting way of kind classifying how can not. People viewed sex so mean what in your experiences there is there anything that struck you as profound or I mean is there something that you can share with us that kind of changed your thinking was very questions about Dali is this is that but there are very much originated in Western culture where sex is thereby this is problematic from the Catholic Church’s you for example we know of have is is making love with each other in a very different way but it’s about time because
see couples often you can find errors in the genders Eisenman very high state now I think looking at Salvador Dali will get experience of Western unconscious mind is of the very problem that but if you look at Tonga from
that will see him just which it success and we almost this field is I can think of is to try to the transition from of Western culture which is very problematic history and all the artist that the artists also Hieronymus Bosch lots of the artist you try to was going on Western torturous looking paintings but that got out to you another image of Christ been flirting with a Mary Magdalene the Catholic Church will will boycott everything is artist that you have temples is this is a difficult it is a secret enough of type of connection just called people getting it is much more whole you see how small aluminum upon were Salvador Dali was course is presented come up with a tortured experience
with the best you can, great masturbator I really like that comparison that think it’s very accurate well said so in your book you use you talk about sublimated passion to few yoga movements postures getting the bodies, to four is needed what what is sublimated passion end how does this effect on a movement you are at all the support sublimation is this from psychoanalysis sentences was something about it that is Sanskrit word would be would relate to and it translates will is this full blossoming the seem and so it’s just a with the genital puberty the teenagers San Carlos sublimation of it is much more than you know of blissful feelings and why don’t amazing is one of the sensitive to so
that you can name whatever those feelings are way that generates bodily movements the dancing the Dawson is is body, body it just the way it will make you feel good feeling and that’s liberation liberation a lot of embodiment is free to move our body Majesty excavated at Salvador Dali showed your whole body of my favorite is over here smile and so I’m totally free I can go as much joy as a result system I had once I start feeling that’s when I say a few who asked questions such as social stop saying that you are in my mind might say is a radio and I’ll say attracted visitors asking the buzz is the romantic life by that I was live footage is something about what it was improves and move to
that and then I do I spread out capacity globalists similar to what happens this gigantic bubbles but I’m I’m just I’m everywhere that changes StarfieldI would be about intercourse so I just about it is the wasn’t nobody could put onto a ballet or up dancing festival is everyone would think it was extradited yeah that makes a lot of sense know so we have to yourself from this X-rated this lets the arrows go everywhere but not introduce now it’s sexual is that but a ballet performance which is everybody’s rushing that there have and ballet since of pornography without know so just as sublimation this animation examination with all kinds of emotions and so finally this passion that we respect
well respected to the genitals we restrict that passion to the nipples stays there for you find this kind of it goes but it redistributes itself soulfully it’s the same old sexual hundred that Stewart that really woke me up a little bit I makes a lot of sense to me so so is moving on here so in in Aeros consciousness and can you talk about contracts celibacy and I I think a lot of Westerners shunned sold the celibacy it’s kind of looked at down and pain how how is celibacy important and very upset about that is another super question 160 a while my words to say again because of such as the celibacy is Catholic Church has very little in common with what Buddha did although he also was a it’s
like saying every baby is a little bit different in the body what argue with that just because is called baby cousin that they are cookie-cutter it’s equally true of Solomon six and sold go over to something like Buddhism in some of the great mystics like Mike Meister Eckhart or Teresa of St.
John some of these high-level states of the Richard they taken this puberty that is described in puberty have start having been balancing energies for the active inside of one’s own body more erotic than that type of experience of dealing male and female energies is the genetic background chemistry somebody that’s what yoga actually met you was a person of the path of the sun the great energies in the in the body interact with each other within your own body and yoga was the outcome is still types of movements blissful types of patterns and and find the whole conscious mind has a kind of a sort of Essen it’s called the called and what is so awake is the energy has marrying inside oneself
there’s this past is a monk look at don’t think all that poor guy problem is the priests and nuns and monks in the Of religion Much yoga that they had to make good on their file very restricted mode of celibacy and it proved too much for was just traveled to model of the body that are the puberty is that I’m describing and this marriage see it’s it’s it’s a joy I did it first started you could save us from Soloway and as we welcome experience to Mr.
where we are approaching the end you that by but being do you describe these cultural barriers and how how do you think we are being affected by this like it and yoga is being practiced more and more through Western society and and people are kind of catching on to moving it’s the kind of seems like you and I are ahead of the curve by about 1015 years well so you know of at but I was thinking of them 72 they continue to work with our without was the last 40 years others only 5% of the… Is translated and that’s a problem because when people become an expert in those 5% authentic and they like that will instruct is the threatening there’s the sometimes more that I don’t know about why I
bookable this for the next 5 to 10 years of people such as yourself that are interested in we can have to be humble is it’s a whole huge cultural transmission from such as China without the colony that that’s of dollars to yoga all this information in and you know how many thousands of dollars spent on promoting the sexual liberation process that that 60s and 70s all the movies all the music that helps to stop guilty about sex some percentage of that to transform pornography for example so.
Going back to the first puberty but it’s all shockers as it did you songs and then yoga classes at the radically transform some of the freeform and not just flow but ecstatically flop of a we summarize something probably won’t change it sense of what Americans that is a joyful ball and chain when the baby is and maturity that comes along with it the tone for abortions by large and contraception the tremendous maturity will change the world hopefully in the next 510 1520 years until where the world will be now will be justice for all as I saw what happened between 1949 when I was born when for example on the revision of black the jaws is something you know by schools are the person that
integration come along way to have a black man in the White House in a year 2000 32,045 that for myself the incarnate so I is somewhat like how you are so well Stewart this conversation has been enlightening sewer I really truly appreciate your time I highly suggest that anyone listening pick up a copy of this it really struck a chord for me the book is called advanced spiritual intimacy store where can people is her website the people can go to to find you yes you can get a signed copy of you really like that by just googling my name going to my website that my email address be happy to describe personal message of value a copy if you want go quickly just go to Amazon.com books of us out on
Amazon.com almost everything what is what is your site called the eyes the undermining so spot Stephen it’s called counseling services okay will make sure that the link is available for anyone listening short thank you again serve it’s been great this the human experience my name is Xavier and we are getting it out here we will see you guys next week
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