Michael Murphy, Co-Founder of the Esalen Institute

This week’s conversation is with Michael Murphy, co-founder and chairman emeritus of the board of the world famous Esalen Institute, tucked away on the coast of Big Sur, in California.

Michael and Esalen have been ground zero for the human potential movement: exploring everything from consciousness, Eastern philosophies meeting Western frameworks, the birth place of Gestalt therapy, to generating scores of mind body interventions.

In 1950, Michael was a premed student at Stanford and wandered into a class discussing Eastern and Western philosophies and religions.

The miscue changed his life.

Soon he was meditating and, after earning a bachelor of arts in psychology and serving in the U.S. Army, he lived on an ashram in India for 18 months.

Upon returning to the United States, he and the late Richard Price started Esalen on property the Murphy family owned.

Over its 50-plus years of existence, it has been described as a “personal growth think tank.”

The organization is focused on personal growth, meditation, massage, ecology, yoga, psychology, spirituality — there was nothing quite like it at the time.

Michael is also an author.

His work includes:

· The Future of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature, Golf in the Kingdom

· The Life We Are Given: A Long-Term Program for Realizing the Potential of Body, Mind, Heart, and Soul

· In the Zone: Transcendent Experience in Sports

· An End to Ordinary History

It's a gift to laugh with him and learn from Michael, and I'm honored to share our conversation.

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