Buddha At The Gas Pump

Puran and Susanna are successors to Hazrat Inayat Khan and Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan in the lineage of Universal Sufism: the mysticism independent of any religious tradition and the essence of all. They are one of the few married couples who teach together in the field of personal development and social change. IAM is celebrating its 22nd year! In the last four years, Puran and Susanna have led 30 to 40 seminars a year, reaching thousands of people a year. They are frequent presenters at conferences on the heart, sound, subtle energy, healing, psychology, relationships, business development and sustainable futures. They have been teaching for 35 years and have directly influenced tens of thousands, who have in turn gone on to spread the techniques and principles of the heart to many more. IAM began in 1988 when Pir Vilayat Khan asked Puran and Susanna to start a new school to bring the message of the heart to the public through a professional and scientific approach. This message, as taught by Hazrat Inayat K

Steve Taylor is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Metropolitan University and the author of several best-selling books on psychology and spirituality. For the last several  years he has been included in Watkin's list of the '100 most spiritually influential living people.' His books have been published in 16 languages, while his articles and essays have been published in over 40 academic journals, magazines, and newspapers. Eckhart Tolle has described his work as ‘an important contribution to the shift in consciousness which is happening on our planet at present.’ Andrew Harvey has said of his work, ‘Its importance for our menacing times and for the transformation being birthed by them cannot be exaggerated.’ Steve is also a poet; his first book of poems and spiritual reflections, The Meaning, has just been published. Steve lives in Manchester, England with his wife and three young children Books: Waking From Sleep: Why Awakening Experiences Occur and How to Make Them Permanent The Fall: The Insa

HALE DWOSKIN, New York Times Best-Selling author of The Sedona Method who is featured in the Letting Go movie, is the CEO and Director of Training of Sedona Training Associates, an organization that teaches courses based on the emotional releasing techniques inspired by his mentor, Lester Levenson. Hale is an international speaker and featured faculty member at Esalen and the Omega Institute. He is also one of the 24 featured teachers of the book and movie phenomenon, “The Secret,” as well as a founding member of The Transformational Leadership Council. For over three decades, he has regularly been teaching The Sedona Method to individuals and corporations throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, and leading coach trainings and advanced retreats since the early 1990s. He is also the co-author with Lester Levenson of Happiness Is Free: And It’s Easier than You Think (a five-book series). Sedona Training Associates is an educational training organization that was created to continue fulfilling Lest

DISCOVERING OUR NATURAL WELL-BEING As the name suggests, well-being is natural – that is, it’s a normal condition (if not an average one for most of humanity) and not just in the domain of some sages and saints. Our real shared nature is one of goodness, balance and harmony, where suffering is not imagined or dwelt upon. In truth, in nature, there is no such thing as “suffering”. There is, of course, pain, when an injury is inflicted, and grief in unnatural circumstances or when a loved one passes, but there is no necessary attachment of mind-made suffering to that pain in nature. Our natural well-being finds its foundation in truth, reality, and love. Taken together, they form the ground of all our human and divine experience of life. And this grace of living in peace and contentment is what it means to be naturally “happy”. By “contentment” we mean contentment with the content of now – whatever that might be in the moment –confusion, anger, pleasure, pain, fear…bills! All this is mirrored and embraced in

Louis Brawley was born in Ohio and lived and worked in New York, where he met UG Krishnamurti in 2002. Louis traveled in the USA, India, and Europe with UG for the following five years, acting as an informal caregiver as UG’s health deteriorated. Louis works as an artist, photographer and freelance art handler worldwide – occupations that fund his travels around the world writing and recording accounts and impressions from friends of the "Raging Sage." UG from the book cover... "Goner will teach you the meaning of the phrase 'paradoxical truth'. UG Krishnamurti gave up everything for truth, but delighted in ridiculous fabrications: he was a teacher who refused to teach; a man who mocked do-gooders but was deeply kind; he was chaste but foul-mouthed, he was a man who decried the supernatural ... yet there were strange coincidences around him.    ...the way he lived, his living quarters and his mode of expression were one continuous movement, a three dimensional, living book of teachings. If you were observa

Alon has practiced Awareness Meditation for years and works with individuals and groups worldwide. Alon shares knowledge with anyone who wants to be awakened. Anyone who wants to awaken from the dream is welcome to contact Alon. Email YouTube Interview recorded 5/18/2013 Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast. YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction and Biography 00:04:37 - The Organic Growth of My Teaching Journey 00:07:55 - The Illusion of Helping Others 00:10:46 - Discrimination and Illusions 00:13:32 - The Illusion of the World 00:16:45 - Inquiry into the Mind's Nature 00:20:15 - The Disappearance of the Mind 00:22:55 - The Mind's Reactivity and Conflict 00:25:43 - The Illusion of Thoughts and the Reality of Pure Consciousness 00:28:10 - The Illusion of Thought and Identification 00:31:08 - The Illusion of Interacting with People 00:34:01 - The Illusion of the Ego 00:37:43 - The Illusion of Identity 00:40:10 - The Mind's Preferences vs. th

PANEL: The Three Simultaneously True Levels of Nondual Reality; Don't Mistake Understanding for Realization, Don't Mistake Realization for Liberation. Most humans view their situation in a conventional, non-mystical way, treating whatever happens as concretely real, and to be judged as "good" and "bad," etc. By contrast, a growing number of non-dual teachers and students espouse the view that whatever happens is "the perfect manifestation of Divine Will," or that "nothing is really happening or ever happened." Yet our situation is not so one-dimensional as these positions would hold, and an expansive, truly liberated way of talking about Reality will involve more dimensions. A three-fold model of nondual Reality will be discussed which many have found quite helpful in accounting for all levels of our experience. Reports of spiritual awakenings, once rare, have become commonplace. Modern seekers often find an intuitive understanding of the ultimate non-dual reality or the illusory nature of the world to be s

Dr. Gersten practices integrative psychiatry and nutritional medicine out of his office in Encinitas, California. In this interview we discuss his book Are You Getting Enlightened Or Losing Your Mind? A Psychiatrist's Guide for Mastering Paranormal and Spiritual Experience. Dr. Gersten writes from his personal experience, his work with patients, and the wisdom of the ages. He is the author of The POW Survival Guide (dedicated to the Allied Troops of Operation Desert Storm), mental imagery consultant to Rodale Press on 18 books, columnist on Alternative Medicine for The Life Connection, publisher of Atlantis the Imagery Newsletter, and author of more than 300 published articles. He has consulted with the White House on alternative medicine. Dr. Gersten is also an accomplished musician and composer of 2200 songs and 7 symphonic works. Being half doctor/healer and half artist/musician allows him to bring a wide breadth of experience to his work with patients. While psychiatry tends to focus on what's wrong, Dr.

Alice Grist is the author of three books. Her first book was The High Heeled Guide to Enlightenment, which saw Alice explore alternative spirituality from her modern day, fun loving perspective. The second is Prediction Magazine Award Winning (Best Book 2012) The High Heeled Guide to Spiritual Living. Following Alice's dabbling with different faiths, she decided to forget all of them, and simply live spiritually. This book is a fiery and funny account of just what she learned! Alice's third book, Dear Poppyseed: A Soulful Momma's Pregnancy Journal, which is a personal, spiritual (and very human) account of her first pregnancy is to be published early 2013. All three books are published by Soul Rocks and have attracted much reader and reviewer acclaim. Alice is a frequent contributor to many magazines and online lifestyle sites including regular articles on Huffington Post, Natural Health (The Soul Diva), Hello Giggles and The Conversation writing about spirituality and soulful living in her own quirky, acces

Anne Sermons Gillis started her spiritual pilgrimage at 4. She explored multiple avenues for self-realization and even though she experienced the mystical, traveled the world, lived her life’s calling and created an abundant physical world, she always returned to the doorstep of suffering. Through the use of metaphysics, she achieved her material goals by the age of 24 and found herself living the empty life of the American Dream. She renounced much of the material world and found that renunciation brought no better rewards than achievement. In her quest to alleviate human suffering she delved beneath the traditional ideas of happiness and spirituality to the core of reality. At age 49 she awakened to that which is beyond suffering. Along the way, in 1984, she co-founded Connection Church (Center for Spiritual Growth) in Memphis, TN and served as the senior spiritual guide until 1998. She moved to Houston, Texas as a result of a strong inner urging. She met her mate two weeks after arriving and they married

Francis Bennett entered the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemane in 1981 and in the 90's subsequently lived at a "daughter house" of Gethsemane in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Until recently, he was living in a small urban monastery in Montreal Quebec. He has been a "spiritual seeker" during all those years, practicing in the Christian mystical/contemplative Tradition and working deeply with teachers in both the Vipassana and Zen Traditions as well. In 2010 he experienced a profound perceptual "shift" in which he realized the ever-present presence of pure Awareness, which some would call, the Presence of God.He has worked in the field of Spiritual Care in Parish Communities and with the sick and dying in Hospice and Hospital settings. He has led retreats, offered spiritual talks and has accompanied many on their spiritual journey. He graduated from the Pontifical College Josephinum with a BA in Philosophy and completed a two year chaplaincy residency with Ohio Health Hospital system.Francis' forthcoming book, to be

Eli Jaxon-Bear was born Elliot J. Zeldow in Brooklyn, New York, in 1947. His eighteen-year spiritual path started in 1971, when he was a federal fugitive during the Vietnam war. In 1978, Kalu Rinpoche appointed him the president of the first Kagyu dharma center in Marin County. In 1982, he was presented with a Zen Teaching Fan at ChoShoJi Zen Temple in Japan. After a search took him around the world and into many traditions and practices, his path and his search ended when he was pulled to India in 1990, where he met his final teacher, Sri H.W.L. Poonja. Confirming Eli's realization, his teacher sent him back into the world to share his unique psychological insights into the nature of egoic suffering in support of self-realization. Eli infuses the teaching with his teacher’s living transmission of silence. He presents a unique map of egoic identification as a vehicle for ruthless self-inquiry and final realization of true freedom. He dedicates his life to passing on the transmission of his teacher. Eli cur

Yukio ‘Ramana,’ MA, CCHT, started his study of meditation and psychology in 1967 with Zen meditation and Gestalt Therapy. His studies continued through the 1970’s with a Taoist Master, Chu Fong Chu in Berkeley, California, where he continued his studies in Psychology and Taoist philosophy. In 1977, he was certified as a biofeedback therapist and maintained a private practice and lectured on biofeedback in Berkeley, California. He pioneered a Rolfing/Biofeedback study which confirmed in 1977 that the Rolfing work was stabilized with Biofeedback. In the early 1980’s, he co-founded the Fellowship of Awakening along with Shakti Gawain (author of 'Creative Visualization'), Tolly Burkan (firewalking teacher to Tony Robbins) and Mark Allen (publisher of Ekhart Tolle's, 'The Power of Now') , teaching creative visualization, affirmation, rebirthing, biofeedback and principles of clearing consciousness. He then obtained Master’s degree is in Psychology and Transpersonal Studies from Norwich University, New Hampshire.

Mercedes Kirkel is an author and channel for Mary Magdalene and other beings of light. In July of 2010, Mary Magdalene began coming to Mercedes daily, giving extraordinary messages for humanity's evolution and spiritual growth. That was the birth of the book, Mary Magdalene Beckons: Join the River of Love, which contains the full series of Mary’s heart-opening and mind-expanding messages, along with Mercedes’s illuminating commentary. Mercedes offers workshops and privates sessions—in-person and long-distance by phone or Skype. Her work includes Akashic Record Readings, Channeling Beings of Light, Spiritual Guidance, Emotional Healing using Mary Magdalene’s Instructions, and Sacred Sexuality Instruction. To learn more about Mercedes and her work, visit www.mercedeskirkel.com and www.marymagdalenebeckons.com. Transcript of this interview Interview conducted 3/30/2013. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast. YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction and Background 00:07:12 -

Amoda Maa is a contemporary spiritual teacher, author, and speaker. After years of spiritual seeking, meditation, and immersion in psychospiritual practices, an experience of the dark night of the soul led her to a profound inner awakening. Then, after a long period of integration, she began speaking from silence in small gatherings. Today she offers meetings and retreats, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and events, attracting spiritual seekers and people looking for peace and fulfillment in an increasingly chaotic world. Her teachings are free of religion and tradition, and she brings to them a deep understanding of the human journey, born out of her own experience. She is the author of Radical Awakening (originally released as How to Find God in Everything) and Change Your Life, Change Your World: Ten Spiritual Lessons for a New Way of Being and Living. Both books were written shortly after her awakening and before she began to speak in public. Her new book Embodied Enlightenment — written 15 yea

Rick is host of this show. Alex Tsakiris, host of Skeptiko, is a successful entrepreneur turned science podcaster. In 2007 he founded Skeptiko, which has become the #1 podcast covering the science of human consciousness. Alex has appeared on syndicated radio talk shows both in the US and the UK and is well-known within the parapsychology and near-death experience and parapsychology research communities. The Skeptiko Agenda Follow the data… wherever is leads. Explore the possibility that the dominant scientific paradigm (i.e., materialism) might be at a tipping point. Engage the top thinkers in pointed discussions about the questions that matter most. Interview conducted 3/16/2013 Transcript of this interview. Other BatGap interviews of Rick: Rick Archer, Interviewed by Richard Miller Rick Archer, Interviewed by Fax Gilbert Rick Archer, talk at SAND ’15 Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast. YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump 00:0

I Am Soft Bones Lit with a Misty Diffused Light, Surrounded and Penetrated with Essence, Isness, The All. I Am That Still Point, Between Illusion and Light. From this Place, I See the Space of Emptiness Here Inside That I Have Made by My Dying, Ready to receive this vision of Galaxies Universes End on End Spinning Around the Center of Me Absolute Stillness From Which Is Sucked in and Spit Out, All That Ever Was and All That Ever Will Be. I Am That, You Are That. We Are One anatta Paradoxically, “Anatta”, HWL Poonja, enlightened master, said, "means, I don't exist." Exactly! That was Anatta’s experience late one night almost 20 years ago when the ego/personality disappeared and was seen to have less reality than smoke and dust. Yet a magical life has transpired, regardless. Starting out as a ‘Jesus Freak’ in New York, Anatta lived in Oregon and India as a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. In the presence of HWL Poonja she washed the Master's dishes, ate radishes from his hands and massaged his arm which h

Author of The Big Glow  and The Wow of the Now, Spiritual Teacher, and Life Coach. At the age of 20 years old, Brian was suddenly struck by a mysterious, debilitating illness, later labeled chronic fatigue syndrome, that lasted for years, leaving him in intense, daily, physical pain and too weak to effectively function in society. When no medical or other authority figure could explain the suffering that was happening to him, Brian made it his life commitment to inquire into human suffering. What began was over 11 years of committed, serious inquiry, study and personal application into the fields of spirituality, religion, psychology, sociology, cosmology, ecology, health, arts, science, yoga, as well as the core of the enlightenment and self-realization teachings. After leading a quiet, simple life for over a decade, Brian felt a passionate calling to share his straight forward, timeless, spiritual truths for the 21st Century in a modern context with those who are ready and interested. Since that time, B

Talat Jonathan Phillips is the author of “The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic.”  He co-founded the cutting edge web-magazine Reality Sandwich and Evolver.net, coordinating 50+ regional Evolver communities.  He is a religion blogger for "The Huffington Post," the creator of “The Ayahuasca Monologues: Tales of the Spirit Vine,” a Reiki Master and Bioenergetic Healer and does Skype sessions.. About The Electric Jesus When Talat experiences a devastating loss as a countercultural media activist, he unwittingly starts on a mystical journey marked by underground ayahuasca ceremonies, kundalini awakenings, prankster spirit guides, extraterrestrial encounters at the Burning Man festival, and miraculous energy healings that reshape his skeptical worldview. Along the way, he chronicles the rise of an international movement that is trailblazing visionary ways to address our current planetary crisis through raised consciousness. To better understand his spiritual journey, Talat delves in

Until the summer of her fiftieth year, Jan Frazier lived a life typical for a well-educated, middle-class American woman. A divorced mother of two teenagers, she was making a modest living writing and teaching writing. Following a Catholic childhood in Miami in the 1960s, she had studied English in college and graduate school. In her late twenties, longing for hills and snow, she moved to New England, where she was active in the peace movement. But the inner peace she sought always eluded her. Then, in August 2003, she experienced a radical transformation of consciousness. Fear fell away from her, and she was immersed in a state of causeless joy that has never left her. While she has continued her life as writer, teacher, and mother, she has discovered it is possible to live a richly human life free of suffering. Her wish now is to communicate the truth that within every person is a pool of calm well-being that waits patiently to be stirred to life. When Fear Falls Away: The Story of a Sudden Awakening (Wei