Buddha at the Gas Pump

Roger Walsh MD., Ph. D. DHL graduated from Queensland University with degrees in psychology, physiology, neuroscience, and medicine, came to the United States as a Fulbright scholar, and is currently a professor of psychiatry, philosophy, anthropology, and religious studies at the University of California. His research interests include psychological health and wellbeing, virtues such as love and...

Isira brings a deep understanding of Indigenous, ancient and universal wisdom. She bridges the gap between the overwhelming challenges we face in the world today and our spiritual journey. As a powerful advocate for conscious change, Isira is highly engaged in today's social issues. Her enlightened commentary assists us to navigate the divisive worlds of politics, climate change, mental health and...

Diane Hennacy Powell, M.D. is a Johns Hopkins-trained psychiatrist, therapist, neuroscientist, and public speaker. She develops multidisciplinary theories towards understanding psychological anomalies, such as savant skills and verified accounts of spacetime navigation. Her current research focuses on controlled testing of autistic savants and children reported to be telepathic and/or precognitive...

Forty-five spiritual teachers, members of “The Association for Spiritual Integrity”, met for four hours prior to the start of the 2019 Science and Nonduality Conference. For the first couple of hours, we engaged in a deep, honest discussion about the challenges teachers face, seeking to learn how we might better support one another. We then broke into six groups, each focusing on a particular topi...

With Jac O'Keeffe, Mariana Caplan, Craig Holliday, and Miranda Macpherson Introduction by Rick Archer The spiritual awakening sweeping the world may be critical to addressing our critical problems. Ethical breaches by spiritual teachers sabotage this awakening. How the ASI was founded. Its role & perspective. Qualities and Characteristics of a healthy teacher, student, and spiritual community....

Leanora Rose founded Embody Truth in 2012 as a way to support an integral approach to awakening and embodiment.  The work is originally inspired through a personal awakening and culminates into a coherent and disposable map helping others navigate the terrain.  Using a direct felt sense experience a somatic meditation practice supports unification, integration, and embodiment of all phenomena (tra...

Susan Raven is a long-time student of Anthroposophy and an experienced workshop facilitator. She has worked with the methods and exercises prescribed by Rudolf Steiner for seeing into the supersensible realms and has also trained with Dorian Schmidt, director of the Biodynamic Research Institute. Susan is author of the book "Nature Spirits: The Remembrance", featured in the Cygnus magazine, Nexus,...

Born in 1968, Sebastián Blaksley is a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, born into a large traditional Catholic family. He attended the Colegio del Salvador, a Jesuit school of which the headmaster was Jorge Bergoglio, the current Pope Francis. Although he wanted to be a monk as a young man, his family did not consider it acceptable, and the inner voice that he always obeyed let him know that: "Yo...

Recorded at the 2019 SAND Conference Opening points: People get polarized in different perspectives. The more they focus exclusively on their perspective, the more justification for it they find. Learning to appreciate paradox; accommodating different viewpoints within a broader perspective. Enlightenment as Totality. Only Totality can realize Totality. Totality has no difficulty reconciling parad...

Mirabai Starr writes creative non-fiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. She taught Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years and now teaches and speaks internationally on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialog. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss. She has receive...

Rabbi Zvi Ish-Shalom, Ph. D., is a professor of wisdom traditions at Naropa University and is the founder of Kedumah, a universal mystical school that teaches a step-by-step approach to spiritual awakening and personal development. Integrating the timeless wisdom of the great mystical traditions with cutting edge knowledge of psychology, science, and the somatic healing arts, Zvi gently points us...

John J. Prendergast, Ph. D., is the author of The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence and In Touch: How to Tune in to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself. He is a retired adjunct professor of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and a licensed psychotherapist. He studied for many years with the European Advaita master, Jean Klein, as well as with Adyashanti. He...

Julie Brown Yau, Ph. D., has a 30-year background in psychological, somatic and spiritual traditions providing her with a unique depth of knowledge and direct experience. Julie’s unified approach for addressing developmental and complex trauma, includes the latest neuroscientific & psychosomatic findings, depth psychology, & Eastern wisdom. Julie is an author, speaker, and has a private pr...

Vicki Woodyard is a spiritual writer living in Atlanta, Georgia. Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, she graduated from The University of Memphis, magna cum laude, with a B.S. in English and Psychology. She is a meditator, a webmaster and has a lifelong interest in the spiritual path. Her late husband, Bob, died of multiple myeloma in 2004 and they lost their only daughter to cancer when she wa...

Mark has been called “one of the finest spiritual guides of our time,” “a consummate storyteller,” and “an eloquent spiritual teacher.” His work is widely accessible and used by many and his books have been translated into more than twenty languages. A bestselling author, he has published twenty-one books and recorded fourteen audio projects. In 2015, he was given a Life-Achievement Award by AgeNa...

Annette Kaiser was born in Zürich, Switzerland in 1948. She is a spiritual teacher, founder and spiritual director of the retreat center Villa Unspunnen in Switzerland. Under her guidance, this place has become a gem of peace and light, that inspires many people in their spiritual work. She is a visionary of a Universal Spirituality and has written more than ten books. After completing her studies...

Henry Shukman (Ryu’un-ken) is an Associate Zen Master of the Sanbo Zen lineage, based in Kamakura, Japan. He has trained primarily with Joan Rieck Roshi, Zen teacher John Gaynor, Ruben Habito Roshi, and now continues his training under the guidance of Yamada Ryoun Roshi, current abbot of Sanbo Zen. Henry is dedicated to what he sees as core Zen training—clarifying our essential nature to our own s...

Dr. Miles Neale, PsyD, is a Buddhist psychotherapist in private practice and founder of the two-year online Contemplative Studies Program. Author of Gradual Awakening (Sounds True, 2018) and co-editor of Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy (Routledge, 2017), Miles is a faculty member of Tibet House (US) and Weill Cornell Medical College. With more than twenty years integrating the mind science...

From my earliest memories, God was always at the center of things. After exploring a number of teachers and modalities in the great spiritual garden of late-sixties San Francisco, things really geared up when I learned the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique in Berkeley in 1967. TM’s gifts were unmistakable and I began a thirty-year career of devoted service to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the V...

Cassandra Vieten is Executive Director of the John W. Brick Foundation, Scholar-in-Residence at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at the University of California, San Diego, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences where she worked for 18 years and served as President and CEO from 2013-2019. She is a psychologist, mind-body medicine researcher, author of numerous art...

Noah is an explorer of what is happening in his own experience. This started on the level of mind, and gradually opened to exploring what's going on in his body, and then from his soul. This journey has led him to meet, feel, heal, and let go of a tremendous amount of pain. Through this journey, a lot of wisdom and honesty has revealed itself. Noah now shares himself and his insights with others....

Rey Hernandez is Executive Director of the Consciousness and Contact Research Institute (CCRI), a 501c3 academic research institute comprised of 15 Ph. D. academics and medical doctors whose mission is to explore the relationship between Consciousness, our Cosmology, and Contact with Non-Human Intelligence via the Contact Modalities. Rey was previously one of the co-founders of The Dr. Edgar Mitch...

Gillian Ross has always found it difficult to put a label on her spiritual perspective. If pressed she would describe herself as a Christian Buddhist yogi and mystic with a penchant for Taoism! Over recent years, however, she has been happy to call herself a spiritual evolutionary or evolutionary mystic in the tradition of Teilhard de Chardin in the West and Sri Aurobindo in the East. Born in the...

Dorothy Walters, Ph. D., spent most of her early professional life as a professor of English literature in various Midwestern universities. She helped to found one of the first women’s studies programs in this country and served as the director of this program for many years. After an extended residence in San Francisco, she now lives and writes in Colorado, where she has a close relationship with...

Sri Shyamji was born and raised in India. At age 12, he met his spiritual teacher in the Himalayas and spent several years under his guidance. The Guru initiated Shyamji into the Saivite tradition of Tantra—imparting a rare oral tradition of sacred sounds (naada yoga), breath (svara yoga), and spiritual wisdom. The grace of the guru (guru krippa) and the spiritual practices he imparted (sadhana) a...