Buddha At The Gas Pump

Sri M - spiritual guide, social reformer, and educationist – was born into a Muslim family on November 6, 1949, in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. His transformational journey, from a young boy to a living yogi, is a fascinating story symbolized by single-minded discipline and dedication. Entranced by mystical stories of Sufi saints and a brief encounter with a numinous Swami at a relatively young age, he was not only drawn to the ‘truth’ but also the compelling landscape of the snow-clad Himalayas. At the age of nine, his spiritual transformation was initiated by his future Master, Babaji (also known as Maheshwarnath Babaji), who miraculously appeared under a jackfruit tree in the compound of his house in Thiruvananthapuram. Though only fleeting, this meeting definitively set the stage for their future reunion in the Himalayas at Sri M’s age of nineteen. For the next three and half years, he lived and traveled extensively through the Himalayas with his Master. Maheshwarnath Babaji guided him right through his

Sheerly by Divine Grace, in 1971 Timothy woke up to nondual Reality, the Divine Reality or Self that is doing everything and being everybody. He has gratefully served ever since then as a simple “spiritual friend” (kalyana mitra) and since the 1980s as a satsang leader, counselor, healer, and author of over one hundred essays, as well as the book Women of Power & Grace: Nine Astonishing, Inspiring Luminaries of Our Time and forthcoming books (The Liberating Zen Sourcebook, the enormous 2-volume India’s Sages, and other works). His website Enlightened-Spirituality.org is a major resource on spiritual awakening, nondual wisdom and nondual devotion, engaged spirituality, illustrious sages, and world religions, spiritual humor, and much more. After residing in the Santa Barbara region of the Great Dream from 1988 to mid-2016, Timothy and his wife Laura are residing in Vistancia, Arizona, for at least a year to be close to her family. Timothy continues to hold free satsangs and classes on a variety of spiritual to

David Newman is an author, inspirational teacher, world-renowned devotional singer, songwriter and recording artist. He travels extensively sharing his music, and teachings on the path of love as a vehicle for spiritual awakening. David is also the creator of the The Stay Strong Project and the founder of Yoga On Main. He has been featured on NPR, and in The Washington Post and Yoga Journal among many others. David, also known as Durga Das, lives with his wife Mira and daughter Tulsi just outside of Philadelphia, USA. Website: davidnewmanmusic.com Transcript of this interview Interview recorded 8/31/2016. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast. YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump 00:07:12 - From Tennis to Yoga to Kirtan Singing 00:13:16 - Introduction to Kirtan and Neem Kurali Baba 00:20:41 - The agenda of a great being 00:28:22 - Medication and Mental Health among Youth 00:35:10 - Stay Strong, Keep Your Faith Alive 00:46:16 - The D

Here I am, Roger. From an early age I recall a natural inquisitiveness towards the nature and mechanics of all sorts of things. I was constantly observing and theorizing. Fortunately, throughout life, the denser and more persistent forms of suffering were not something I was particularly familiar with. Life unfolded quite smoothly on an inner and outer level. Although there was already a strong spiritual bent, it wasn't until my late twenties that life introduced the notion of enlightenment and the underlying non-dual nature of life. When this happened all the cells in my body shouted ‘yes’ and there was an unexplainable faith that trusted what had been read. From that point, everything else faded into insignificance next to the quest that had been ignited. This was the beginning of a wonderful phase which spontaneously started some 15 years back and spanning 5 years miraculously didn't stop until what was initially pointed at became lived on an unwavering basis. IT WAS ALL JUST HAPPENING What was most

Anette Carlström is an internationally recognized speaker, author and teacher in development in consciousness living in Helsingborg, Sweden. Her focus and specialty is guiding the individual and in groups toward finding your inner compass to discover your full potential and true nature. Anette also has a strong presence in chanting Sacred Mantras, offering mantra concerts as well as having recorded several CD's carrying the transmission of Divine Grace through the Oneness Blessing, easily accessed by simply listening. She is the author of two acclaimed books. In her first – From the Heart - Discovering and Living the Oneness Blessing– she shares her bumpy journey of conscious Awakening and natural transformation as well as answering sensitive and profound questions. Her second book – Namaste, Awakening The Power of Presence is a road map and extraordinary guide, exploring the sacred truths that are hidden in our everyday life. It is filled with wonderful guided meditations and anecdotal stories. Each word of

Adam Chacksfield is a nondual spiritual teacher whose retreats and private sessions are known for their transformative power and love-saturated depth. He devotedly serves the alive field of awareness as it unfolds, reveals, and liberates, rather than any fixed philosophy. Adam first turned toward spirituality and meditation after a series of profound psychedelic-assisted openings led him to experience the truth that lies beyond all philosophies. At age 33 he left his career as a university professor of political theory to devote his life to spiritual unfolding. For a few years, Adam struggled to try and piece together all the apparently contradictory teachings and practices. These efforts decisively fell away when he came across the nondual teaching of Peter Fenner, and realized the openness that can never be captured in words and requires no practice. Adam started inviting his friends to do nondual inquiry with him and was amazed by the ease with which the direct experience of openness could be shared. In

My childhood world was one of abuse, repression, and terror. This is what I believed the world was about. Until, from the depths of my despair, I began searching for a new way. My conscious spiritual journey began when I was called as a young adult, determined to find new life and freedom from this limited world, to a higher quest for the Truth of myself. I studied many forms of spiritual practice, including Buddhism, Native American, Judaism, and others, and soon became aware that the Source of All Life is within all traditions. Approximately 15 years ago, I entered into a deep Shamanic/healing Path centered in the heart of Brazil. I remained fully committed and dedicated to my journey in this form for eight years, healing most of the false ideas that I carried through all of my lifetimes. After this, I was called to enter a several year retreat. During this time I was guided to enter fully into the teaching of A Course in Miracles. I received the transmission completely through my heart and guided by my pr

“The point of this teaching is the realization of total and complete freedom, in which we are free from suffering.” I had my first conscious spiritual awakening aged 18. Everything was seen to be one, the sense of personal self fell away and I had a deep sense that I truly was not the limited being that I commonly took myself to be. This experience was short-lived and further fueled my seeking. I wanted to try to re-experience it. I think because this experience happened in the context of reading a book, I subsequently developed a voracious appetite for reading spiritual texts. I read books on everything such as on Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, Mystic Christianity, Vedanta, Dzogchen, and the core texts of each, as well as many self-help and new-age type books. I also had a keen interest in science and mathematics and my studies took me along this route in school, eventually leading me to study medicine and become a doctor. I later got married and now have two amazing and lovely children. Alongside my studies, car

Richard C. Miller, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, author, researcher, yogic scholar, and spiritual teacher who, for the past 46 years has devoted his life to integrating western psychology and neuroscience with the ancient nondual wisdom teachings of Yoga, Tantra, Advaita, Taoism, and Buddhism. Richard is the founding president of the Integrative Restoration Institute, co-founder of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, founding editor of the peer-reviewed International Journal of Yoga Therapy, and a founding member and past president of the Institute for Spirituality and Psychology. Author of iRest Meditation: Restorative Practices for Health, Healing and Well Being iRest Yoga Nidra Immersion - An 8-Week Intensive to Accelerate Mind-Body Healing & Spiritual Awakening Yoga Nidra: The Art of Deep Relaxation Richard also serves as a research consultant studying the meditation protocol he’s developed (Integrative Restoration ~ iRest Meditation), a modern adaptation of an ancient yogic f

“The spiritual journey does not consist in gaining what a person does not have, but in dissipation of ignorance concerning himself and life, and the growth of understanding which begins with spiritual awakening. To find God is to come to one’s own self.” - Avatar Meher Baba. No longer the person with its conditioning and history, here now there is only this and the overall feeling is “I don’t mind.” No fear, no push, a great emptiness that is also a rich and all-pervading fullness. Here there is silence, peace and an exquisite sense of joy. Here it feels so light there is no distance, ‘marinating in the self.’ It is as if nothing is happening here yet happening graciously unfolds. To look back at the dream, the necessary mistaken identity, it seemed like so much happened. Personhood was such psychological suffering. Separation, a feverish, fearful struggle, always restless, dissatisfied, looking outside for love and fulfillment. Now peace, and love reside here. I have spent thirty years with Avatar Meher B

David Godman has lived in India since 1976, mostly in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu. He spent his time there studying and practicing the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi. His anthology of Ramana Maharshi’s teachings, Be As You Are, is probably the most widely read book on Sri Ramana’s teachings. During his fourteen-year stay at Ramanasramam (1978-92), he managed the ashram’s library, cataloged its archives, and recorded the stories and experiences of devotees who had had direct contact with Sri Ramana. David is the authorized biographer of two devotees of Sri Ramana Maharshi (Lakshmana Swamy and Papaji) who realized the Self in Sri Ramana’s presence and who later went on to become gurus themselves. He has written and published several other books that contain first-person accounts of devotees who moved closely with Sri Ramana Maharshi and who were transformed by his power and presence. In collaboration with two Tamil scholars, T. V. Venkatasubramanian and Robert Butler, he translated and edited several Tamil

Jurgen Ziewe has been following a strict regime of meditation since 1969. In 1973, after a six-month stint of intensive meditation for up to five hours a day, he decided to abandon the practice completely, being disappointed with the lack of progress and some negative side effects. Then one day out of the blue, at breakfast, he spontaneously experienced a total dissociation from his body and entered a state of what he described as one of absolute clarity. After this he continued his meditation practice, but now paying homage to the experience with more humility than before. He directly attributes the spontaneous Out-of-body experiences that followed for the next forty years, to this powerful experience of consciousness singularity. Jurgen has spent hundreds of hours, mostly in a super waking awareness in these out-of-body states, which frequently lasted several hours at a time. He soon mapped out what he considered to be the multidimensional reality man inhabits after physical death. On one of these non-phy

Bernardo Kastrup has a Ph.D. in computer engineering with specializations in artificial intelligence and reconfigurable computing. He has worked as a scientist in some of the world's foremost research laboratories, including the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the "Casimir Effect" of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). Bernardo has authored many scientific papers and philosophy books. His three most recent books are: More Than Allegory, Brief Peeks Beyond, and Why Materialism Is Baloney. He has also been an entrepreneur and founder of a successful high-tech start-up. Next to a managerial position in the high-tech industry, Bernardo maintains a philosophy blog, a video interview series, and continues to develop his ideas about the nature of reality. He has lived and worked in four different countries across continents, currently residing in the Netherlands. Books: Why Materialism Is Baloney: How True Skeptics Know There Is No Death and Fathom

Sruti is a spiritual teacher and feminist advocate. She writes about her experience with an uncommon and painful illness called Interstitial Cystitis. This ongoing and chronic condition challenged her to stay present with daily pain and to look further inward for answers. In an extreme moment of pain, in which consciousness began to fade, Sruti experienced the erasure of all that clouds over the earliest source of vision. She asks the question: with whose vision are we seeing when the lights are going out? Has this early vision ever known anything at all? After these extreme episodes of pain Sruti spent time on retreat with teachers such as Gangaji and Mooji. She found no difference in these nondual pointings and the discoveries made directly in painful circumstances. Sruti finds that we can allow what is painful to become a tool to disrupt the ordinary layers of our experience. Underneath these layers we find the unconditional peace that is our constant being in each moment. Can we investigate the source

Geneviève De Coux was born in 1947 in Namur, Belgium during her parents’ holidays. The family lived in the Belgian Congo. Geneviève and her brother enjoyed an idyllic childhood until 1960, the year of the Congo’s independence. The family emigrated to Belgium. Their paradise was lost. Geneviève found herself in Brussels, this radical change of scenery stoked the fire of her ontological search and she found refuge in art. In 1968 during her second year at the university while studying her philosophy paper, she stumbled upon a saying of Socrates which hit her straight in the heart: “Know thyself”! Realising that this was precisely what she had always been looking for, she instantly dropped her studies and set out for India by road in search of a living Socrates or Buddha. On reaching the Himalayan foot-hills, she led a meditative and ascetic life by the Ganges in Rishikesh, waiting to meet her master. The locals called her Mira because of her devoted renunciation. At the end of 1968, in circumstances well wort

Tom Thompson is a teacher of Conscious Living. In 1982 Tom began teaching Conscious Living at the Woodbury Yoga Center in Connecticut, and in 1990 at The Awakened Heart Center in North Carolina. Conscious Living is an all-inclusive way of life. It includes the possibility of radical awakening along with the integration of body, emotions, mind and spirit; living skillfully and effectively in this world; and being in loving, empowering relationships. In 1964, at the age of fifteen, Tom became a student of human psychology and a practitioner of the yogic pathways and enlightenment traditions. He has had the great fortune of training in depth with a number of exceptional teachers in both the enlightenment traditions and western psychology. While pursuing spiritual realization, Tom had many jobs in many different fields. All were important in terms of his personal growth and evolution, but the most important was working 13 years as a mental health worker in psychiatry. He has extensive training and experience

Thomas Razzeto is one of the newest and freshest voices among the teachers of our balanced, ancient nondual wisdom. Thomas easily digs deeply into the core of this wisdom to reveal both its essential truth and the heartfelt compassion that all true sages embody when they are genuinely engaged in the world without being entangled by it. The first time Thomas heard this nondual wisdom was in 2005 when he attended one of Timothy Conway’s satsangs and Thomas has continually attended these weekly meetings since they provide the foundation for all his work. (By the way, Timothy Conway was guest number 28 at Buddha at the Gas Pump way back in July of 2010.) Timothy woke up when he was only 16 and he later was fortunate enough to meet several enlightened masters, such as Sri Nisargadatta, Annamalai Swami, and others among Sri Ramana Maharshi’s immediate followers. Thomas teaches in plain English, yet much of what he says would be recognized by people familiar with Advaita, Buddhism, or Hinduism. Thomas has taught h

Chadwick Johnson is a teacher at heart. Chad does not claim to be an expert in the various subjects that he teaches, but rather, he teaches the subjects in which he seeks to become an expert. In fact, Chad ultimately attributes his spiritual clarity and ability to articulate non-dual concepts in a simplistic manner, to this “the teacher is the student” approach to sharing Truth. Chad had a spiritual awakening in early 2010 after reading “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle, and began teaching non-duality later in that same year. Chad knew early on that the wisdom he shared was from a source of intelligence that was greater than his own. Consequently, he used his own teachings as a guide in his spiritual journey toward spiritual clarity. While Chad read countless books and watch hundreds of videos of teachers such as Mooji, Rupert Spira, Eckhart Tolle, and Adyashanti, it was ultimately the trust in his own teachings that dissolved all questions. Since 2010, Chad has spoken to thousands of people about self-di

Suzanne Giesemann is the author of 11 books, an inspirational speaker, metaphysical teacher, and evidence-based medium. She is a messenger of hope who captivates audiences as she brings love, healing, and comfort through her work. Suzanne’s gift of communication with those on the other side brings stunning evidence of life after death, as well as validating her teaching about the purpose of life, the nature of reality, and attuning to higher consciousness.  Her work has been recognized as highly credible by afterlife researcher Dr. Gary Schwartz, Ph.D., and best-selling author Dr. Wayne Dyer. Suzanne is a retired U.S. Navy Commander. She served as a commanding officer, as special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations, and as Aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11. In addition to earning the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, she has a Master’s Degree in National Security Affairs and taught political science at the U.S. Naval Academy. Her unexpected and fascinating career transformat

A former athlete, teacher, and business entrepreneur, JC is now an author, producer, and teacher who corresponds with students worldwide. A student himself, first of his enlightened father, and later of world-renowned teachers J.Krishnamurti and Eckhart Tolle, JC's own investigation into the nature of Life and the universe led to realizations in Pure Consciousness that eventually led to the writing of his critically acclaimed book, The Christ Is Not a Person: The Evolution of Consciousness and the Destiny of Man. He has written and produced a three-episode video series entitled, Pure Consciousness: The Last Frontier. It can be viewed online at jctefft.com. Non-duality teachings focused on the nature of Awakening unto Pure Conscious Awareness posted in the form of video shorts will be made available for viewing online in the coming years. Transcript of this interview Interview recorded 3/26/2016. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast. YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction