Buddha at the Gas Pump

Daniel Ingram is the author of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book, is one of the founders of the Dharma Overground, has been a speaker and interviewee on Buddhist Geeks, and practices Emergency Medicine as a physician. He is highly influenced by the practices of Mahasi Sayadaw, but his interest in the dharma is much more pragmatic than dogmatic and draws...

Karen Johnson is a co-founder of the Diamond Approach as it is taught in the Ridhwan School, a contemporary original spiritual understanding and path, expressing timeless wisdom on self-realization using the insights of our time. She is a colleague and friend of Hameed Ali (A.H. Almaas). Her life is dedicated to the discovery of inner freedom and sharing the treasures with humankind. In this inter...

The iconography and texts of most spiritual traditions depict and describe realms of existence more subtle than ordinary sensory perception reveals. The most commonly portrayed phenomena are halos in paintings of saints. But in addition to this evidence of the human “subtle body”, the traditions are abundant with paintings and stories of subtle beings such as angels, gods, devas, demons, etc. Is t...

Roger Housden is the author of 20 books, including the New York Times bestseller Ten Poems to Change Your Life. Housden’s work has been featured in O: The Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Huffington Post. He lives in Sausalito, CA. For more, visit rogerhousden.com. Other books: Keeping the Faith Without a Religion (book) Keeping the Faith Without a Religion (audio...

Jeddah Mali is the Executive Director and founder of Global Paradigm Ltd, which delivers training programs for individuals and organizations seeking a completely new approach to the age-old dilemma of how to make life, business and society work effectively and harmoniously. Jeddah’s unique approach identifies and maps the cohesive design underlying every system, from an individual person to a sola...

Fax and Sharon Gilbert were among my first guests on BatGap (interview here). Recently, Fax has been interviewing a few people in Fairfield, Iowa under the auspices of Fairfield's Trillum Awakening group. In this interview, I neglected to adequately express my appreciation to the volunteers who make BatGap possible. Please see the Volunteers page for a list of some of them. Transcript of this inte...

Neelam is a direct disciple of H. W. L. Poonja (Papaji), whose teacher was Sri Ramana Maharshi. Her unequivocal commitment to Truth helps us turn inward and release underlying patterns of conditioning which block the recognition of our True Nature. With the utmost tenderness while helping us to address all aspects of daily living, including past conditioning and trauma, she invites us into the sam...

As an independent scholar, speaker, radio show host, published author, sacred tour leader and social justice activist, Karen's work for three decades has been inspired by her interests and passion for travel, comparative religions, ancient cultures, women's her story and the resurging interest in the rise of the Feminine Consciousness. Her work combines feminism, spirituality, and uplifting women,...

Adam C. Hall achieved the American Dream in all its glory and then woke-up to the nightmare of his own life condition.  Once a financial power broker and real-estate developer, Adam undertook a life-changing metamorphosis that would ultimately alter his mind-set from Earth Conqueror to Earth-Keeper. To come this far, Adam had to come to terms with the misery that was at the center of his very priv...

Prajna O'Hara (formerly Ginty), MA is the bestselling author of Edge of Grace: A Fierce Awakening to Love, (2014) and Resources for Living Awake (2016). Prajna embodies the “wisdom of no escape” and evokes through dialogue, inquiry, and presence the spirit of authenticity, courage, and kind acceptance while inspiring people to unleash core aliveness. Prajna carries a message that vividly charts th...

Sharon is a gifted intuitive and a spiritual teacher in the lineage of Adyashanti. Sharon has a devotion and great love of the Truth. Adyashanti asked her to teach 2003 and guide those genuinely drawn to the path of Truth. Since then, Sharon continues to deepen into and embody this Truth herself. She invites you to “Come home…” to That which you’ve always been. In her presence you’ll taste a palpa...

Robert E. Svoboda is the first white member of Kenya's Pokot tribe, and the first non-Indian ever to graduate from a college of Ayurveda and be licensed to practice Ayurveda in India, where he lived for more than a decade. During and after his formal Ayurvedic training he was tutored in Ayurveda, Yoga, Jyotish, Tantra, and other forms of classical Indian lore by his mentor, the Aghori Vimalananda....

My family moved to Canada from Finland when I was five. I clearly remember an experience that started developing from this time, where I could see an unmoving sphere, or bubble, of comfortable light, or consciousness, that surrounded my body. If I moved my hand outside this safety net it looked somehow darker and I would draw it back to safety. In this space, I always felt that I could do no wrong...

Dr. Menas Kafatos is The Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor of Computational Physics and Director of Excellence at Chapman University. He received his B.A. in Physics from Cornell University in 1967 and his Ph. D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972. After postdoctoral work at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, he joined George Mason University and was University Profess...

Jack Petranker is the founder and director of CCI and regularly offers programs and online courses. A student of Buddhism since 1973, he is also the director of the Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages and a faculty member at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute. He served as Dean of the Institute in Berkeley from 1988-1991 and as North American Vice-President of the World Fellowship of Buddhi...

A. Hameed Ali was born in Kuwait in 1944. At the age of eighteen, he moved to the USA to study at the University of California in Berkeley. Hameed was working on his Ph. D. in physics when he reached a turning point in his life and destiny that led him more and more into inquiring into the psychological and spiritual aspects of human nature. Hameed's interest in the truth of human nature and the t...

Kristin Kirk experienced an initial awakening in 2003 which revealed healing gifts, subtle workings of consciousness and radically transformed her experience of reality. Since then, Kristin has supported self-realization, embodied awakening and multidimensional functioning for individuals and groups through classes, healing sessions, meditation retreats and awakening journeys. Kristin is available...

Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, where he chaired the Department of Religious Studies for nine years and helped create the GEM Program, a doctoral concentration in the study of Gnosticism, Esotericism, and Mysticism that is the largest program of its kind in the world. Jeff is the author of seven books, including Comparing R...

Jan passed away on July 5, 2025. Jan Esmann, born 1960, is an "enlightened kundalinī shaktipāt master" living in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he teaches, transmits and gives shaktipāt. The highest teachings are transmitted in silence during meditation or afterward. Jan is not part of any tradition or represents a lineage. He has been giving shaktipāt since the mid-1980s but did not fully emerge as a...

Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris is an internationally known evolution biologist and futurist living in Spain. Her post-doctoral degree was at the American Museum of Natural History, she taught at MIT and the University of Massachusetts, contributed to the NOVA-Horizon TV series, is a fellow of the World Business Academy with an honorary Chair in Living Economies, and is an advisor to Ethical Markets. She c...

David Alsobrook is now deceased. His father was a Nazarene pastor and David received a “new birth experience” at age 15. He devoured the Bible from cover to cover and went much deeper into exhaustive, detailed studies of Scriptures for years after that. He devoted the first 3 hours of the day in private prayer as well, hungering and seeking for more of God in his life. He began traveling and speak...

John Hagelin, Ph. D., is a world-renowned quantum physicist, educator, author, and leading proponent of peace. Dr. Hagelin has conducted pioneering research at CERN (the European Center for Particle Physics) and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. He is responsible for the development of a highly successful grand unified field theory based on the superstring—a theory that was featured in a cov...

Lama Surya Das, whom the Dalai Lama affectionately calls the “American lama”, has spent over forty years studying with the great spiritual masters of Asia. He is an authorized lama in the Tibetan Buddhist order and the founder of the Dzogchen Center. Surya Das is the author of the international bestseller Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World and twelve other books, inc...

With Chris Bache, Ph. D., Jeffrey and Cielle Backstrom, Talat Jonathan Phillips, and Rak Razam Chris Bache, Ph. D., is professor emeritus in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University where he taught for over 30 years in the psychology of religion, transpersonal studies, Buddhism, and world religions. He is also an adjunct professor at the California Institut...

Miranda Macpherson is a spiritual teacher, counselor, and author of 'Boundless love'. Known for her depth of presence and refined capacity as a guide into direct experience of the sacred, Miranda teaches and transmits a powerful synthesis of self-inquiry, depth psychology, devotion, and meditation. Inspired by Ramana Maharshi, A Course in Miracles, and extensive study into the world's wisdom tradi...