ISTA Facilitator Nimai Sun Ra grew up without a father. As a result, he has felt, perhaps more urgently than most, the need to become his own father figure. To provide himself stability, guidance, and the strength that a biological father might often provide.

In recent years, he has been on a journey of extending that experience of fatherhood from himself to his own two young sons. As he tells us in this conversation with Usha, the journey of fatherhood has been the best, most important, thing he has ever done. Every initiation he has been through in his life, he says, has been a preparation for the initiation of fatherhood.

And it has been an initiation, with wonderful new realisations mixed in with unavoidable difficulties. In this episode Nimai talks about how his relationship with his beloved, the mother of his children, shifted dramatically, how he could not get through it without the support of other, older brothers, and how he had to deal with failure.

And he reflects deeply on the spiritual journey of fatherhood, on how important a role it is to be able to play in the world, whether it is with your own children, other’s, or in a more symbolic way.

Nimai also covers:

Navigating fatherhood and open relating
The value of focussing on fatherhood without distraction
How becoming a father can shifts romantic relationships
The importance of community when kids come along
The role of your inner parent
Distortions in the role of the father
How the father is often the one called on to set boundaries

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Fatherhood as Transformational Path: Nimai Sun Ra