Unraveling Religion

In today’s The Labyrinth podcast, retired psychiatrist Henry Cretella joins us to share both his philosophy and personal experience with surrender. We begin our conversation with Eckart Tolle’s view that surrender requires an expansion (and often suspension) of our rational mind. From there, we discuss the general nature of surrender and the role of intuition. We move into sharing stories about times when we felt a deep intuition/calling to stretch the boundaries of our limited rational frameworks and take a leap. The podcast ends with Hazrat Inayat Khan's essay on the future of humankind.

Biography

Henry Cretella, M.D., graduated from Vanderbilt Medical School and completed his psychiatric training at Strong Memorial Hospital of the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY. His professional career spanned over 40 years as a general and child and adolescent psychiatrist and included teaching, administration, clinical practice and consultation in the greater Rochester and western NY areas. This, along with his spiritual and especially mystical interests lead him to certification as a mind body practitioner through the Center for Mind Body Medicine and Dr. James Gordon. He retired several years ago from active psychiatric practice, but continues to incorporate what he has learned into his spiritual practices and offerings.

Henry studied and practiced Tibetan Buddhism for several years along with training in martial arts. He then immersed himself in the more universal Sufism of Inayat Khan, an Indian mystic, for close to twenty years. He functioned as a senior teacher in the Inayati Order and the Sufi Healing Order before pursuing his independent practice and study of mysticism. He now integrates what he has learned and experienced over these many years.

'Crazy...or wise? The traditional wisdom of indigenous cultures often contradicts modern views about a mental health crisis. Is it a ‘calling’ to grow or just a ‘broken brain’? The documentary Crazywise explores what can be learned from people around the world who have turned their psychological crisis into a positive transformative experience.'

Exploring alternatives to psychosis, from 2014 as Crazywise was nearing completion, Phil and Joel talk of spirituality, shamanism and healing. Phil and Joel talk about the gifted (i.e., those who exhibit Shamanic potentic through hearing voices and visions) and their relation to mental health distress, our Western cultures treatment, and the traditional or indiginous view of these markers as a sensitivity and gift.

Biography

Phil Borges, has been documenting indigenous cultures and striving to create an understanding of the challenges they face. Phil has spoken at multiple TED talks; including TED in 2007, TEDxRainier in 2012 and TEDxUMKC in 2013 and hosted television documentaries for Discovery and National Geographic.

Henry Cretella and Joel discuss collaboration to present a series of four workshops in 2024 from Amber Light, Int. and Education Training Center, Inc.'s Ground and Sky Poetry Series entitled 'Spirituality In Everyday Life.' The topics of the four workshops are: 1. Spirituality And Service 2. Spirituality And Relationship 3. Spirituality And Mental Health and 4. Spirituality And The Arts.

Also, Henry discusses some of the aspects of Amber Light, Int. and its podcast Alchemical Dialogues and Joel explores the Programs and Services of Education Training Center, Inc. and the ways it seeks to address mental health and marginalization.

In this brief talk, the foundation of Amber Light, Int.'s relationship to Sufism and the threads found in all world's traditions are discussed as well as Education Training Center's podcast Unraveling Religion's relationship to build and support mental health through a strong spiritual or existential foundation, and other programs and services of Education Training Center, Inc. that address mental health without distinction to cause.

Listen to this collaboration to build healthy community with two old friends who share a common vision and passion to improve the quality of life for others.

In Part 2 of this talk, Mike, Mike and Joel continue deconstructing meaning death and spirituality. Joel tells a story of his 'good friend' John Bednarchik who passed in 2012, and John's profound influence on Joel through his living example cultivated by John's long and devoted practice of Zen Buddhism. How do we sow seeds of faith in the process of life itself? How the idea of "Ownership' or 'Propriety' is a form of delusion. How do we connect the heart and mind, as people, as practitioners, and as counselors. Why are spiritual practices important? How do these practices teach us to develop comfort with silence and how do we ground ourselves in 'Who We Are?'

In this talk from 2017, Wadud and Joel explore what is beyond psychology from a religious, mystical, and spiritual perspective in dreams; also, the relation of Freud, Jung, and Sufism and what dreams teach, symbols, where does meaning stop, archetypes, the unconscious, "accidents," "symptoms/neurosis" and the balance of our actions as tipping scales to what is good.

About Henry Cretella, M.D: he has had a professional career spanning over 40 years along with his spiritual and especially mystical interests. Henry Cretella, M.D and Kathleen FitzPatrick, LCSW co-direct Amber Light International, a non-profit educational/spiritual group. Through it, they offer spiritual guidance, individual and group retreats, workshops, intensive book studies, celebrations and other related experiences. Under the aegis of Amber Light, Alchemical Dialogues (link https://www.amberlightinternational.org/podcast/) are live and unscripted conversations recorded on Zoom, with topics from our current social and cultural climate, with an emphasis on humanism and spirituality.