Please listen to the entire Schapera Show broadcast of June 10, 2022 on HealthLife.net here
David Gandelman is an author and spiritual teacher. He is the founder of the Meditation School app, a popular teacher on the Insight Timer app, and host of the Meditation School, Energy Matters, and Grounded Sleep podcasts. He also guest teaches at Cornell University.
David’s style connects energetic experience, ancient wisdom traditions, and humor, to create a safe atmosphere for people interested in learning to meditate, and develop into their potential.
You can also listen to just the individual show segments here
Vivien talks with David Gandelman
Neil reports on his Shamanic Journey to ask about Restoring Optimism
Vivien brings messages from Crystals – Nummit
Here is the interview draft
David Gandelman
Meditation Teacher
Hello and welcome to the Schapera Show where Viv and Neil explore this big adventure called life. Our guest today is David Gandelman, a traveler, author and teacher who has written a bestselling book on Meditation. Hello David, thank you for joining us on the show!
David: Hello, Vivien! Thank you for having me on the show.
Vivien: David, I wonder whether we can kick off with a brief description of how you come to be here, talking to us today?
Here’s a brief bio: David Gandelman is a teacher, author, and guide, whose mission is to awaken souls on their path of growing into being human, and living an enlightened, purpose-driven life. He is the founder of the Meditation School app, and host of the Meditation School, Energy Matters, and Grounded Sleep podcasts. And his meditations have been streamed millions of times. He has taught at Cornell University, NBC Universal, SAP, and numerous other organizations. David holds a B.A. in Western philosophy from Rutgers University, which combined with his studies in Eastern spiritual traditions living in the Himalayas, as well as his experience as the director of a school for intuitive development and mysticism in Hawaii, informs a teaching style that connects energetic experience, ancient wisdom traditions, and humor in order to create a safe atmosphere for people interested in learning to meditate and develop into their potential.
Vivien: And you’ve just written a book that took Amazon by storm?
David: Yes, I am the author of The 7 Energies of the Soul: Awaken Your Inner Creator, Healer, Warrior, Lover, Artist, Explorer, and Master, which was released in February 2022. and it’s true, within weeks my book reached #1 in the category of Healing on amazon.com slightly after its publication
Vivien: But you don’t only have this book to offer, you’ve got a whole lot more, haven’t you?
David: Yes, I’m the founder of a Meditation School, the host of several podcasts, and a meditation instructor at Cornell University. I’ve also developed a meditation app that has been downloaded ? times.
Vivien: Wow, David, that’s super-impressive. It’s not that easy to make it so big in the alternative field. There’s only space for a few of us to go mainstream like you have. Congratulations!
David: I wish you’d tell my grandpa that! He’s 92 and he keeps asking me “When are you going to get a real job?”
Vivien: Oh dear! The generation gap! But maybe your grandpa has a point – we’re operating virtually and there’s no way that can seem real to someone who is 92. I mean, it’s boggling my mind to absorb these changes … and so rapidly! But, let’s go back to the book, and particularly, the number “seven.” That’s an important number to me for a variety of reasons, and I’m wondering what it means to you.
David: Yes, we’re probably interested in the number 7 for the same reasons, because there’s a science to the number 7. When we refract white light through a prism, we get the 7 colors of the rainbow. Similarly, we can “refract” the energy of the soul and discover 7 layers or aspects, and these are the 7 main areas to express in life, 7 ways to fulfill the soul’s potential.
Vivien: Hmmm, I think you may have just explained to me why I have seven careers!!! But before we go off topic in this extremely tempting direction, I can sense a back story. One doesn’t just sit down and write a book like yours – there has to be some living, some experience before one is equipped to tackle a project like this. What’s your story?
David: Yes, indeed, that’s true. I have a degree in philosophy and I also lived in India, in an Ashram. I have over 10 years of teaching experience.
Vivien: Can you give us more detail about what you’ve taught and where?
David: [please expand this for me] Yes, I’ve had a blessed life. For one thing, I was born with a happy disposition, and I’ve had so much opportunity to travel, explore and teach. I worked in the Energy Matters Academy, founded 2015, Hawaii.
I think I should add that I was very sensitive as a child – actually, I was so empathic that I could feel people’s pain – and that has become my life’s work: recognizing that there is pain in each of us.
Vivien: And is that why you wrote the book?
David: Yes, to reach more people. Reaching people is important. See, the thing is that after working with people in this way for ? years, you begin to see a pattern. When it comes down to it, we all have the same questions, the same bucket of topics, the same problems. Then I had this insight, I flipped figure and ground – what feels like a problem to you may not be a problem at all, it could be your life purpose calling you.
Vivien: So, you’re saying that this pain we experience – this pain of living – this is teaching us something important?
David: Yes, I like the Pema Chodron quote: Pain teaches us what we need to know, and it won’t go away until we learn what it is trying to teach us.
Vivien: And how do you suggest that we work with this?
David: Well, if we feel stuck or lost, there is a way out, but ironically, the way out is by “going in.” Carl Jung was asked: “Is the apocalypse inevitable?” and his answer was: “Not if enough people do their inner work.”
Vivien: David, can you describe the process of “going in?”
David: Yes, it is like peeling back an onion. [please edit/add to this] We have to begin wherever we are, paying attention to sensation, articulating our experience including feelings like fear of being rejected, wondering whether we are accepted. We must go deeper and deeper until we get to the core.
Once we get to the core, we observe a radiation of pain around the core, and then once we’ve “found it” we can work with it. The progression is: We find it, we feel it, we face it, we heal it.
Vivien: What strikes me is that you are teaching wisdom – a wisdom of the self. Yet, you’re so young. How does it feel to be an “old soul” in a young body?
David: Well, that’s a fair question. There is, after all, such a thing as impostor syndrome. One day on the beach in Hawaii, I had this clear thought: “I’ll never be as good as my teachers” and right in that moment of thinking that thought, a bird crapped on my head.
Vivien: OMG, really? That’s a sign, for sure.
David: Indeed! I used to be a guru-chaser and I had to grow out of that.
Vivien: I think I know what you mean. How did you grow out of that?
David: I saw a teacher snap [give some story/description] one day, and that burst my bubble. I realized that even teachers are still just human, and have human limitations. I realized that I need to look inside myself for the answers I was seeking.
Vivien: Yes, this whole dynamic with teachers is fascinating, isn’t it? There are 2 dynamics that I watch – the one is how the teacher can cast a shadow over the student, and the other, taught to me by one of my students, is the teacher who invites the student to stand on his shoulders.
David: Exactly, as teachers we really have to think about what we’re teaching and how our students are going to apply what they learn from us, and who they are becoming.
Vivien: So, David, we’re going to take a break soon, but before we do that, can you tell our listeners how they can get hold of you and where they can buy your book?
David: Yes, my book is available from Amazon of course, plus … and my website is ….[please fill this in]
Vivien: Thank you, you have been listening to the Schapera Show and our guest is David Gandelman, teacher and author. We’re going to take a break now, and when we come back we will ask David more about Meditation and Intuitive Development.
Commercial Break
Vivien: Hello and welcome back to the Schapera Show where Viv and Neil explore this big adventure called life. We are talking to David Gandelman, teacher and author, about two topics, Meditation and Intuitive Development. So, David, can you explain to us the relationship between Intuitive Development and Meditation?
David: Yes, there is a strong relationship. When I teach Intuitive Development, we first build a foundation with Meditation tools. The first step is to understand how to be grounded, how to set boundaries, how to be centered. Only after this foundation is in place can we progress to seeing and reading energy.
Vivien: So, what’s actually happening when we’re meditating?
David: We’re identifying what’s us – what’s our own energy, our own thoughts, and what’s “the rest of the world.” Most people are in a fog about what’s you and what’s outside you. There is such a lot of noise, and when we’re so full of the rest of the world we can’t hear ourselves.
Vivien: So, are you saying that contrary to popular myth, Meditation is not about a blank mind, but more a structured way of being with yourself, being with your own thoughts?
David: [please say what Meditation is according to you]
Vivien: And you have a lot of ways of supporting people who want to meditate, don’t you?
David: yes [please fill in about your classes, your videos and your app, and what is available and how to access it all]
Vivien: That’s a lot! But it’s not all!!! Can you tell us more about your Intuitive Development Training?
David: Yes, we begin with ourselves. [please edit and expand this section] the mind’s eye, see ourselves, thoughts and emotions, gain insights, then we look into someone else. Deal with obstacles to mind screen, black or fuzzy in the beginning. Standard question – how do I know if it’s true or real? Learn how to step into a different part. Skill that develops over time. Need to practice and need a minimum of one year.
Vivien: And how do you recommend that people get started?
David: [give answer, like begin with this video/class, or “just sit” or write or whatever]
Vivien: David, this has been absolutely fantastic to get such an experienced and knowledgeable teacher sharing this wisdom with us. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Please can you tell our listeners one more time how they can get your book, and how they can reach your online courses.
David: [fill info in here]
Vivien: You have been listening to our guest David Gandelman, Meditation Teacher and Author, here on the Schapera Show, where Viv and Neil explore this big adventure called life. When we come back from the break, Neil will be giving his report from the spirit dimension.
Please listen to the entire Schapera Show broadcast of June 10, 2022 on HealthLife.net here