Tami Simon: The Quest for True Wisdom
Tami Simon founded Sounds True in 1985 as a multimedia publishing house with a mission to disseminate spiritual wisdom. She hosts a popular weekly podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of today’s leading teachers. Tami lives with her wife, Julie M. Kramer, and their two spoodles, Raspberry and Bula, in Boulder, Colorado.
Tami Simon: The Quest for True Wisdom
Interview by Victor Fuhrman
To listen to the full interview of Tami Simon by Victor Fuhrman on Destination Unlimited on OMTimes Radio, click the player below.
Victor Fuhrman: Let’s start with your early life and how it led to the founding of Sounds True in 1985?
Tami Simon: Well, it’s an interesting winding road, but I began Sounds True as a college dropout. Sometimes I like to say I dropped in, in a certain way, which is true. I discovered meditation practice when I was a sophomore at Swarthmore College. It was introduced to me by someone who was there for one year as a Fulbright scholarship professor, a gentleman who came from Sri Lanka. And at the end of my sophomore year, I did decide to spend time with him and his wife and three kids and travel to Sri Lanka. And then also up into India and Nepal. That’s when I discovered meditation and committed myself to it as a young person. So, there I was, 21 years of age, I said: ” Universe, use me please to bring this type of practice and other contemplative practices to as many people as possible. When I came back from this pilgrimage, I wasn’t suited to get an academic degree, but I still wanted, and I wasn’t suited because I wasn’t interested in academic learning. I was interested in personal revelation, what we could each discover by turning inward and looking in our inner mirror to what is true.
What happened was that because I wanted to continue my education, but not in an academic setting. So I started interviewing spiritual teachers for Boulder County public radios. This is, you know, 38 years ago before I believed the word podcast was part of the English language. So I hosted an interview show where I talked to the different spiritual teachers who would come through Boulder. And I was trying to understand what happened to me in the journey that I took through Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal, and the inner journey, more importantly, and how to integrate that experience.
And that became the root of Sounds True. People requested copies of the program that I hosted. I had a dubbing machine. I made copies for people. And when my father died, when I was just 21, he was 63 years old. I received a small inheritance. It might sound like today, it was $50,000, but that would be over $200,000 today with inflation. So, for me at that age, at that time, it was a lot of money. And one of the people I was interviewing said to him, what should I do with this money? I just inherited it. I’m not sure what to do with it. And I thought he might have some wisdom because he had a sign on his door. Are you ready for this? I kid you not. It was a yin young symbol with a dollar sign through the center and the words transformational a written-on top.
So, he knew something about the transformational economy. And I said, what should I do with this money I received? And he said, why don’t you put it into yourself? So, remember, I’m hosting a volunteer radio show. I’m not being paid. At the time, I was working as a way or earn money. I’m a college dropout. So, he says, why don’t you put this money into yourself? I said, well, I don’t know what to do with myself. And he looked at me, and he said, come back in three days. We’ll talk about it. So, I think, you know, Tami, what you want. And when I walked out of his office, and once again, I kid you not, it was a strange experience.
I felt like I was walking slightly above the ground instead of on the ground. And then I heard a voice, of course, I don’t know what this voice was, whether it was some internal knowing or something guiding me. That was an external voice all to this day. I don’t know it’s a mystery, but I did hear these three words, disseminate spiritual wisdom. And that’s how Sounds True was born.
Victor Fuhrman: Have you had the voice since that time?
Tami Simon: There are some rare occasions where that happened to me where I know that what’s occurring is important that it’s, I mean, of course, you know, I hear things inside my head all the time. I got voices talking, and they’re all kinds of times, and there’s all kinds of like everyday guidance and like, you know, like most people waking up in the morning, and you know something that you didn’t know when you to sleep. That’s the next thing you need to do a set of operating instructions, but there have been a few times in my life. And this story I’m telling you about walking out of this gentleman’s office is one of them when I’ve felt like I’ve been given a clear divine directive like here you go, it’s clear, clear. And I have had that happen a handful of times in my life, but not often. It’s rare.
Victor Fuhrman: When I attended the new seminary here in New York, back in the nineties, one of the teachings made very present was this concept of everything unfolding in divine order. Do you sense that happening in your life?
Tami Simon: Oh yeah. Whether I’m a two to divine order, appreciating divine order or not is often a question mark. But, still, the divine order’s there, and there’s always an open invitation, I think for all of us to appreciate it, see it, recognize it, and honor it.
Victor Fuhrman: In 2016, you edited and published the self-acceptance project on being kind and compassionate toward yourself in any situation. It’s wisdom mythology on the topic with contributions from many wonderful leaders. What inspired this work?
Tami Simon: So over time, in addition to running Sounds True. I became a meditation teacher, and that’s a whole story in and of itself. But as part of being a meditation teacher, I would have one-to-one meetings with meditation students. And we would sit together for 15 minutes, and people could talk about anything they wanted. Sometimes people were silent in these one-to-one meetings. And one of the things I noticed was that one of the greatest sources of pain for people they would share in these one-to-one meetings was the various ways they were beating upon themselves. The multiple ways people spoke to themselves, I’ll just use it cruelly the way you would never talk to even, you know, someone you, who was, you just met, let alone a friend, let alone someone, you cared about, let alone someone dear to you.
So, people are on the meditation cushion for hours, and what’s torturing is this inner critical voice so many of us. We’re not good enough in this way. We’re not good enough in that way. Our thighs are too big. Our thighs are too small. It could be something about our body. It could be something about how much money we have. It could be something about what we have or haven’t accomplished. It could be anything. And I thought this was such a source of pain for people. And I also recognized it in myself as someone who’s a high achiever and has a very low tolerance, historically, at least for things not going well, that I’m involved in and how I can turn on myself historically when things don’t go well. And I wanted to learn about this.
I want to learn, are there skills, are there perspectives, so we can learn to treat ourselves? Let’s just make decently, let alone kindly and compassionately. Can we be decent towards ourselves, and how much suffering could ameliorate in the world? If we could, it could start to become skillful in that way. So, I interviewed 30 different people, neuropsychologists, poets’ therapists, spiritual teachers, and people from many different perspectives to see some important lessons and patterns. And that’s what became the self-acceptance project, both this 30-part interview series. And then also the transcripts became the book, the self-acceptance project.
Continue to Page 2 of the interview with Tami Simon
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