Buddha at the Gas Pump

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, The PK Man, and Psi Development Systems. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "Parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the...

Bernard Carr is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Queen Mary University of London. As an undergraduate, he read mathematics at Cambridge University and for his Ph. D. he studied the first second of the Universe, working under Stephen Hawking. He was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1975, and in 1980 spent a year traveling around America as a Lindemann Fell...

In 2014, I awakened to the realization that being aware is my true nature. The experience of just being aware without the identity of a person who is aware was at once exhilarating and disorienting. This simple but profound realization transformed my experience of life to one of effortless being. A wonderful result of this awakening is a lasting peace that transcends all experience. In this awaken...

Stephen Doetsu Snyder began meditating daily in 1976. he has practiced since in the Zen tradition as well as extensive practice in Theravada Buddhism. he is a lineage Zen teacher as well as a lineage Theravada teacher. He was also influenced by Diamond Heart teachings and practices. He combines the ancient Buddhist heart practices with awakening practices of the Zen tradition into a heartfelt jour...

Clare Goldsberry has been a life-long student of religion and spiritual traditions. Having been reared Protestant Christian, her goal was to study for the ministry after completing her BA in Journalism at Arizona State University. However, a few semesters into those studies in a cooperative study program with Claremont School of Theology (Claremont, CA), she was called away into the study of Buddh...

Penny Sartori became interested in death and dying early in her nursing career after a connection she developed while caring for a dying patient in the ICU. That event motivated Penny to question what happens when we die and this led to Penny undertaking a long-term study to investigate the near-death experiences of patients in ICU. Penny worked as a nurse for 21 years and currently lectures at th...

Shambhavi is the spiritual director of Jaya Kula, a nonprofit organization offering opportunities to learn and practice in the traditions of Trika Shaivism and the Dzogchen. She has also studied meditation with teachers in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions. Her root Guru is Anandamayi Ma. Shambhavi emphasizes direct encounters with the wisdom of the heart through the more explicitly devotional teac...

Suresh Ramaswamy is a transformational teacher and visionary entrepreneur passionate about igniting and catalyzing the transformation of humanity. He is the author of Just Be: Transform Your Life and Live as Infinity, the recipient of many awards, including the Nautilus book award and the International Soul-Bridge Body-Mind-Spirit award. With his background as an electrical engineer and technology...

Duane Elgin is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and social visionary. He has an MBA in business and an MA in economic history  He has worked as a senior staff member of the Presidential Commission on the American Future, and a senior social scientist co-authoring numerous studies of the long-range future for clients such as the President’s Science Advisor; the National Science Founda...

Karen V. Johnson is a graduate of Georgetown Law Center (J.D.), a former Fulbright Scholar in Afghanistan, and holds Masters Degrees in Public Health and Public and International Affairs (MPH, MPIA). Karen is a retired federal administrative law judge who practiced criminal and energy law for more than 30 years. She also is a former U.S. Army officer, Major, USAR (inactive). Karen was personally t...

Moshe Gersht is a sought out spiritual teacher in Jerusalem. A student of Torah, Kaballah, and Chasidus, he shares ancient mystical and philosophical wisdom in a way that is practical, relatable, and enjoyable. For nearly a decade Moshe toured the states as the singer and songwriter for a popular Los Angeles-based rock band. Only two years after signing a record deal, Moshe had a spiritual awakeni...

Sharon Hewitt Rawlette is a philosopher and writer who studies extraordinary experiences and what they have to tell us about consciousness and the deeper nature of the world we live in. She has a Ph. D. in philosophy from New York University and taught for two years at Brandeis University before leaving academia in 2010 for a career as an independent writer and researcher. Her foray into the realm...

Anoop Kumar communicates a bold, new vision of healing and healthcare based in a more comprehensive understanding of whole human anatomy–a crucial step in the journey of healthcare transformation. He is the founder of Health Revolution, an emergency physician, public speaker, and author of Michelangelo's Medicine: How Redefining the Human Body Will Transform Health and Healthcare and Is This a Dre...

Pravrajika Divyanandaprana is a monastic member of Sri Sarada Math and is currently the Editor of the English journal Samvit published in New Delhi. She has been Principal of Nivedita Vidya Mandir School from 2014 to 2019. She specializes in Yoga-Vedanta. In addition to studying the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda literature, she has extensively studied the Yoga-Vedanta texts based on these twin philosoph...

Shelly Tygielski is the author of Sit Down to Rise Up and founder of the global grassroots mutual aid organization Pandemic of Love.  Her work has been featured by over 100 media outlets, including CNN Heroes, The Tamron Hall Show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, CBS This Morning, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. A trauma-mindfulness teacher and a Garrison Institute Fellow, she has been calle...

Sebastián Blaksley is a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1968 he was 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. Sebastian enjoyed sport in his youth, particularly Rugby football, a game that a number of his family have a long involvement with in Argentina. Although...

At the age of 24, after years of intense internal suffering and an intuition that something about the way we interact with our thoughts causes a lot of unnecessary suffering, Angelo had a fundamental shift in the way he experiences reality. This was a pervasive transformation and was life-altering at every level. It suddenly became clear that thoughts, and the way they "paint" our experience of ou...

Andrew Holecek has completed the traditional three-year Buddhist meditation retreat and teaches internationally on meditation, dream yoga, and the art of dying. He is the author of six books, and many articles, including scientific papers on lucid dreaming. Dr. Holecek is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and a concert pianist, with degrees in music, biology, and a doctorate in de...

I was born 11-11-69 into a nonpracticing Jewish family where the subject of spirituality never came up. So when I discovered an intense spiritual yearning within myself at the age of nineteen, I was completely on my own. After graduating from Towson University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and Philosophy in 1994, I had become an avid practitioner of meditation and contemplation o...

At the early age of eight, Irma Francis experienced what she now calls a soul remembrance.  In this experience, a loving presence spoke. “You have a choice to remember your connection to your true self; if you choose not to remember, you will come to believe the persona of a conditioned self and how the world will try to define you. Whatever you choose will decide your destiny in this lifetime.” S...

Emma Bragdon received her Ph. D. in Transpersonal Psychology in 1987. For more than 40 years she has focused on supporting people awakening spiritually, paying special attention to those in spiritual crisis/ emergency. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Integrative Mental Health for You, IMHU.org, which offers 40+ online courses about effective alternatives to psychiatric medications. Em...

Selbie makes the complex and obscure simple and clear. He is known for creating bridges of understanding between the modern evidence-based discoveries of science and the ancient experience-based discoveries of the mystics. A dedicated meditator for nearly fifty years, he has taught yoga, meditation, and universal experiential spirituality throughout the US and Europe. He has also been an avid foll...

Selbie makes the complex and obscure simple and clear. He is known for creating bridges of understanding between the modern evidence-based discoveries of science and the ancient experience-based discoveries of the mystics. A dedicated meditator for nearly fifty years, he has taught yoga, meditation, and universal experiential spirituality throughout the US and Europe. He has also been an avid foll...

I came across the writings of a well-known Indian guru in my early twenties and thus began a twenty-five-year odyssey that would uproot me from my normal life and see me living in ashrams and committed spiritual communities around the world. The answers I sought were not easy to find, however, and the promises made by the teachers in whom I placed my trust were rarely kept. Exhausted and disillusi...

William Peters, MFT, is the founder of the Shared Crossing Project whose mission is to positively transform relationships to death and dying through education and raising awareness about shared crossings and their healing benefits. As the director of the Shared Crossing Research Initiative (SCRI), William and his team collect and study extraordinary end-of-life experiences (shared crossings).  Wil...