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).  William is a global leader in shared death studies and end-of-life phenomena. He has developed methods to facilitate the shared death experience and to assist experiencers in meaningfully integrating their experiences. William is a psychotherapist at the Family Therapy Institute of Santa Barbara where he specializes in end-of-life counseling as a means toward psycho-spiritual evolution. He served as a hospice worker with Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco.  His work is informed by his two NDEs and a variety of shared crossings. William has presented at the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine’s Annual Conference. His research has been published in the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and is approved and awaiting publication in Omega - Journal of Death Studies. Book: At Heaven's Door: What Shared Journeys to the Afterlife Teach About Dying Well and Living Better. For more information on William go to SharedCrossing.com. Shared Crossing's Story Library contains videos of shared death experiences. Viewers may share their spiritual end-of-life experiences with Shared Crossing's research team. Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded February 5, 2022 Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

Buddha at the Gas Pump

633. William Peters

Lauren Robertson is a lifelong psychic medium who has conducted over 15,000 sittings and public demonstrations globally in a career spanning two decades. She is the author of The Medium in Manolos: A Life-Affirming Guide to Modern Mediumship, published by Hay House, and The Art and Science of Mediumship on Substack. Lauren graduated with honors from the University of Glasgow where she studied English Literature and Philosophy specializing in consciousness studies. Website: laurenrobertson.co.uk The Art and Science of Mediumship Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded January 29, 2022. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

632. Lauren Robertson

EDWARD F. KELLY is currently a Professor in the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) at the University of Virginia. He received his Ph.D. in psycholinguistics and cognitive science from Harvard in 1971, and spent the next 15-plus years working mainly in parapsychology, initially at J. B. Rhine’s Institute for Parapsychology, then for ten years through the Department of Electrical Engineering at Duke, and finally through a private research institute in Chapel Hill. Between 1988 and 2002 he worked with a large neuroscience group at UNC-Chapel Hill, mainly carrying out EEG and fMRI studies of human somatosensory cortical adaptation to natural tactile stimuli. He returned full-time to psychical research in 2002, serving as lead author of Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century (2007), Beyond Physicalism: Toward Reconciliation of Science and Spirituality (2015), and Consciousness Unbound: Liberating Mind from the Tyranny of Materialism - (2021), all published by Rowman & Littlefield. He is now returning to his central long-term research interest – the application of modern functional neuroimaging methods to intensive psychophysiological studies of psi and ASCs in exceptional subjects. Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded January 22, 2022. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

631. Ed Kelly

Gail Brenner, Ph.D. is a psychologist, author, speaker, and lover of the nondual teaching with a fire that burns brightly. She is an expert in healing from early trauma and brings to this work years of experience with individuals and groups. Her work lovingly illuminates our everyday humanness with the deepest spiritual truths, and she is known for creating the safe space needed for inner exploration. Gail has special expertise working with older adults and their families in the transitions of aging, death, and dying. She was an assistant clinical professor at the University of California San Francisco where she trained physicians and maintained a clinical practice. She has published numerous professional articles on coping with stress and chronic medical illness and is the author of the award-winning The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life and Suffering Is Optional: A Spiritual Guide to Freedom from Self-Judgment and Feelings of Inadequacy. She loves exploring different cultures through international volunteering. First BatGap interview with Gail Website: gailbrenner.com Interview recorded January 16, 2022. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

630. Gail Brenner, 2nd Interview

In January 2015, my mind experienced a huge shift, where I perceived everything as God. In that experience, I had what felt like, a download of knowledge or understanding of the truth. I also felt an inner voice telling me that there was more to be revealed and understood, so I continued to give time to silence so that more could be illuminated. Over the following six months, my mind experienced many deeper understandings, and the teachings of A Course in Miracles were linked up in my mind in a way that I could express them to other students, which seemed to be helpful. From that inner illumination, I have kept vigilance to ensure that no false ideas enter my mind and distort truth to any student. I was guided to start an online group and share what was illuminated, to anyone that would like to hear.  My main teaching is that our brother is holy and innocent... and in that perception, our mind heals of its belief in sin, guilt, and fear. I teach others how to apply this "Christ Blessing" to all brothers as a way to a clear and happy peaceful mind. What ACIM calls... The Mind of God. Website: categrieves.com Facebook page YouTube channel Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded January 8, 2022 Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

629. Cate Grieves

Dr. Betty J. Kovacs’ understanding of consciousness and spirituality is based on both scholarly research and symbolic, visionary experience.  In fact, she has written two books concerning these subjects.  Her first book is about her family’s profound visionary experiences surrounding multiple deaths in their family.  Her second book relates to our ancestors’ experience of a vaster consciousness, Cosmic/Christ Consciousness. Within a three-year period, Dr. Kovacs experienced the deaths of her mother, her son, and her husband in separate automobile accidents.  While she had studied shamanism before her son’s accident, she and her husband actually experienced their son’s consciousness after his death for an extended period of time.  These experiences completely changed their lives.  Her first book, The Miracle of Death: There Is Nothing But Life, is about these altered states of consciousness.  After her retirement, she began an intensified period of research into our ancestors’ experience of a vaster consciousness, Cosmic/Christ Consciousness, which she relates in her new book, Merchants of Light: The Consciousness That Is Changing the World, winner of the Nautilus Silver Book Award and The Scientific & Medical Network 2019 Book Prize. Dr. Kovacs’ extensive research tracked the existence of a shamanic-mystic-scientist culture from at least 40,000 BCE.  Our ancestors had developed symbolic language and various shamanic techniques to trigger altered states of consciousness.  Some of these ancestors achieved great skill as visionaries, mystics, and scientists, while others, it is not known how many, achieved the ability to experience Cosmic Consciousness. Their Gift, the blueprint for our evolution, is the knowledge that we are all immortal, divine, and creative.  This blueprint is revealed in the heart wisdom of the mystic and the new science of quantum physics. Unfortunately, in the West, this sacred tradition was suppressed by both Church and State and lost to mainline culture, but it survived underground in the Hermetic arts, Alchemy, Gnosticism, Kabbalah, and Mystic Christianity.  This powerful tradition emerged four times in European history in an effort to integrate this larger consciousness into mainline culture. Each time the tradition emerged, the culture experienced a renaissance, as in the High Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, the Rosicrucian Enlightenment, and the German and English Romantic Period.  Each of these attempts was suppressed. The consistent suppression of this ancient wisdom is the root cause of our current planetary crisis.  And it can only be healed through the consciousness of the heart that births a just and feeling world.  This same tradition, on which our survival now depends, has once again emerged today—and it can change the world. Website: kamlak.com Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded December 19, 2021. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

628. Betty Kovacs

Father Nathan Castle graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio and entered the Dominican order in 1979. He received MA and MDiv degrees from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California. He was Director of the Catholic Communities at Stanford University and Arizona State University. He believes the Holy Spirit has given him a “night job” of helping souls who died suddenly and violently find afterlife peace. He is the author of: And Toto, Too:: The Wizard of Oz as a Spiritual Adventure Afterlife, Interrupted: Helping Stuck Souls Cross Over—A Catholic Priest Explores the Interrupted Death Experience Afterlife, Interrupted Book Two: Helping Souls Cross Over Website: nathan-castle.com Transcript of this interview. Interview recorded December 11, 2021 Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

627. Father Nathan Castle

Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace, a global community at the intersection of technology, volunteerism, and the gift economy. Most recently, ServiceSpace's pandemic response has showcased the unique beauty of its global ecosystem. Nipun has catalyzed a global social movement of community builders grounded in their localities and rooted in practices for cultivating love, nonviolence, selfless service, and compassion. The ecosystem has reached millions, attracted thousands of volunteers, and mushroomed into numerous community-based service projects as well as inspiring content portals. ServiceSpace harnesses the collective power of networks and our deeper interconnectedness to create a distributed social movement founded on small, local individual acts of kindness, generosity, and service that ignite shifts in individual and collective consciousness. Nipun was honored as an "unsung hero of compassion" by the Dalai Lama, not long before former U.S. President Obama appointed him to a council for addressing poverty and inequality in the US. Yet the core of what strikes anyone who meets him is the way his life is an attempt to bring smiles in the world and silence in his heart: "I want to live simply, love purely, and give fearlessly. That's me." In his mid-twenties, Nipun quit his job to become a "full-time volunteer". One of his most formative experiences was a walking pilgrimage across India, with his wife of six months, whose profound lessons also became the subject of his widely-read address at UPenn commencement. Over the last twenty years, he has addressed thousands of gatherings around the world, speaking next to wide-ranging leaders from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to author Elizabeth Gilbert to civil rights legend John Lewis. Germany's OOOM magazine named Nipun one of the Top 100 Most Inspiring People of 2020. See links to these ServiceSpace websites at the bottom of their website.         And for some of Nipun's talks and articles, visit his personal website. Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded December 4, 2021. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

626. Nipun Mehta

Colin was born in a staunch protestant family into the war-torn east end of London in the aftermath of WWII, where austerity and food-rationing were the norms. At the age of 11 he was sent to a Methodist boarding school and from there went to Sheffield University. So, by his early twenties finding himself in Earls Court, West London, in the late 60s when the ‘hippie revolution' was in full swing he was fully ready to break out of the narrow confines that had dogged his life up until then. He discovered the power of high dose LSD to break the barrier between the subconscious and conscious allowing decades of religious (and social) conditioning to pour out, leaving him feeling totally cleansed as if his brain had been truly washed!  He also experimented with mescalin having read Aldous Huxley’s ‘The Doors of Perception’ and had many experiences which felt deeply spiritual in nature including ‘sitting’ above his body for hours and observing the world (and the body itself) from this vantage point. It was this that gave him glimpses as to what could be achieved by natural means which raised one’s consciousness to a ‘higher level’. He was reading Ouspensky at the time and could see that many of these experiences tallied with those that he described. He was fully convinced that Awakening was the purpose of life, but Ouspensky made the whole process sound so onerous that Colin decided to postpone the attempt and enjoy life while he was young and living in such a vibrant environment. About ten years later his wife Janet persuaded him to accompany her to a yoga class given by an ex-Jesuit priest. who inspired us by quoting passages from the Upanishads, Dhammapada, and other scriptures during the class. He also emphasized the importance of relaxation and meditation.  There followed a few years of investigating various spiritual paths including a prolonged dalliance with the Brahma Kumaris (Raja Yoga) whose meditations were wonderful, but whose dogma he found very hard to take. They then moved into the country to start a pottery and immersed themselves in Satyananda Yoga, an organization that had no dogma but taught a wide range of yogic practices. They were both initiated into karma sannyas by Swami Satyananda and adopted a yogic lifestyle consisting of asanas, pranayama, yoga nidra, meditation, kirtan, and vegetarianism. During this time Colin was at a silent retreat when he happened to pick up a volume entitled The Gospel of Ramakrishna which introduced him to this amazing being who practiced many spiritual paths, within Hinduism and also Islam and Christianity, discovering that they all lead to the same result, and was then approached by many devotees from these various paths all of whom he was able to teach in their own path, whilst emphasizing the harmony of religions. After ten years of meditating on Ramakrishna, having been initiated by a nun of that order, he encountered a disciple of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Gangaji, who said ‘Stop! Be still, you are already That’.  The message being that the effort and search were masking that which is always present; all that was required was to ‘stop’ and see what is always here.  After many years of struggle and effort this news came like a breath of fresh air and he glimpsed the essence, that undeniable ever-present reality.  This was followed by a seven-day silent retreat, in 1996, which resulted in his first ‘Awakening’, and in an ecstasy that slowly faded over the following year. During this time, he began to be aware of the utter simplicity of the process, especially as it became more established through repeated self-inquiry. The realization that one is the Pure Awareness that underlies the whole of life, and in fact all things, became startlingly obvious; so much so that he became increasingly disillusioned by most spiritual writings which seemed to mystify this whole subject. This created the desire to put the matter in the simplest, most straightforward,

625. Colin Drake

Philip Goldberg has been studying the world’s spiritual traditions for more than 50 years, as a practitioner, teacher, and author. He trained as a Transcendental Meditation teacher with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1970 and later became an ordained Interfaith Minister and spiritual counselor. As a public speaker and workshop leader, he has lectured and taught at major venues throughout the U.S. and India. As a professional writer, his articles and blogs have appeared in numerous print and online publications, and he has authored or co-authored more than 25 books, including an upcoming novel and such celebrated nonfiction as: The Intuitive Edge: Understanding Intuition and Applying it in Everyday Life; Roadsigns: On the Spiritual Path--Living at the Heart of Paradox; the award-winning American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation How Indian Spirituality Changed the West; the seminal biography The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru; and his latest book, the timely Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times: Powerful Tools to Cultivate Calm, Clarity, and Courage. He has produced e-courses for Spirituality & Practice and has taught many online courses, most recently, The Yoga of Intuition and Creativity, Four Pathways to the Divine, How Hindu Dharma Transformed the West, and the forthcoming An Immersive Exploration of the Iconic “Autobiography of a Yogi.” His special 12-part series, Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times, for Unity Online Radio, features interviews with well-known spiritual teachers. He is currently working on two nonfiction books and a sequel to his novel. In addition, he blogs regularly on Elephant Journal and Spirituality & Health, cohosts the popular Spirit Matters podcast and YouTube channel and leads American Veda Tours to India. He serves on the board of the Association for Spiritual Integrity. His website is PhilipGoldberg.com. Interview recorded November 21, 2021. First BatGap interview with Phil. Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

624. Philip Goldberg, 2nd Interview

Babaji Bob Kindler is the Spiritual Director of the Sarada Ramakrishna Vivekananda (SRV) Associations since 1993 with teaching centers on the Big Island of Hawaii and Portland, Oregon, USA. Babaji teaches Vedanta, Yoga, Sankhya, and other philosophical systems of Truth with an emphasis on learning to live a divine life and the attainment of direct spiritual experience.  He holds a twin spiritual heritage via initiation into the Ramakrishna lineage (Vedanta) and Kagyu Tibetan Buddhism.  Editor of Nectar of Non-Dual Truth, A Journal of Universal Religious and Philosophical Teachings, he is also the author of over a dozen books on spiritual topics, including Dissolving the Mindstream A Quintessential Yoga Vasishtha Twenty-Four Aspects of Mother Kali Footfalls of the Indian Rishis: Charting the Timeless Wisdom of Mother India   Babaji’s spiritual discourses can be found on YouTube, Livestream, and on the official SRV Associations website. Online and residential retreats are listed here. Email subscription and site index. “Our path is mainly a blend of Advaita and Shaktism, with our devotion to Sri Ramakrishna making it Universal, and inclusive of all religions.” Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded November 13, 2021. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

623. Babaji Bob Kindler

Rhonda Byrne is the creator of The Secret, a documentary film that swept the world in 2006, changing millions of lives and igniting a global movement. Her follow-up book, also entitled The Secret, became a worldwide bestseller, translated into more than 50 languages. Rhonda has since released another five bestselling books covering such topics as the power of love, gratitude, the law of attraction, and the hero’s journey to success. Her latest and most important book to date, The Greatest Secret, is a quantum leap that takes the reader beyond the material and helps them discover who they truly are. Rhonda also served as a producer on the inspirational 2020 family movie, The Secret: Dare to Dream, based on her book The Secret. The film stars Katie Holmes, Josh Lucas, and Jerry O’Connell. For more information on Rhonda and her work, visit thesecret.tv. Rhonda holds live Q&As from time to time on Facebook and Instagram. Past ones are archived here. Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Transcript of this interview. Interview recorded November 6, 2021. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

622. Rhonda Byrne

Aging into Awakening Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired therapist, co-author of Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature and Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life, author of Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality, and a novel, A Moth to the Flame: The Story of the Great Sufi Poet Rumi. Her new book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends shadow-work into late life and teaches aging as a spiritual practice. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for 50 years. She is a wife and grandmother and was initiated as an Elder by Sage-ing International in 2017. After investing in all these roles, she is practicing the shift from role to soul. Website: conniezweig.com Email: conniezweig@gmail.com Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded October 22, 2021. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

621. Connie Zweig

Stephen Wright works as a spiritual director and trustee for the Sacred Space Foundation (SSF). Before this, he had a long and distinguished nursing career in the National Health Service and academia, the Royal College of Nursing, and as a consultant to the WHO. He gathered a few glittering prizes along the way. Then his personal and professional life took an about-turn over 35 years ago through a series of life-changing spiritual experiences. Consequently, he developed an interest in spiritual matters and the connection with wellbeing, and cofounded the SSF, to support those in spiritual crisis. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the University of Cumbria in 2013 for his work connecting spirituality and health. Three books explore the nature of healing relationships: Therapeutic Touch: Theory and Practice; Sacred Space: Right Relationship and Spirituality in Healthcare; and Reflections on Spirituality and Health. Coming Home: Notes for the Journey is a personal and scholarly account of spiritual awakening and support. Stephen has received significant development in spirituality and spiritual direction in the presence of several renowned spiritual teachers, most especially his mentor Ram Dass, at the Interfaith Seminary, and in the depth of his relationship with his fellow trustee and SSF cofounder Jean Sayre-Adams. He works with individuals seeking spiritual guidance and organizations developing the practice of healing, spiritual care, conflict resolution, staff support, compassion, and leadership. He is a supporter of and an activist in several environmental movements. As an ordained interfaith minister, he brings a rich experience of spiritual practice from many faiths to his work, as well as being a member of the Iona Community. He is a trustee of TheWEL, a charity based in Scotland offering groundbreaking approaches to wellbeing. With the support of the Diocese of Carlisle (in 2021 he was made a member of the Synod), Stephen established the St. Kentigern School for Contemplatives in 2018. His other recently published works include Burnout: a spiritual crisis: from stress to transformation; Contemplation: words and silence for the Way Home; The Kentigern Way: A life and Lakeland pilgrimage; A Grasmere pilgrimage; and collections of poetry and chant: Song and Dance for the Way Home; Beloved; and Yours, Faithfully. Heartfullness: The Way of Contemplation: 12 steps to freedom, awakening and the Beloved completes a quartet of related books on spiritual awakening and is a deep, experiential ‘course’ in liberation from addiction to the ego-self, opening to the way of contemplation, and becoming receptive to the Beloved and a path of service. He lives with his partner in the English Lake District, deepening service and spiritual practice, participating in his local church community, taking care of his organic garden, and enjoying grandfatherhood. Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded October 16, 2021. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

620. Stephen Wright

Lucy was raised in a low socioeconomic household and neighborhood, by a young single mother in New Zealand in the early 1980s. The lack of resources available in childhood resulted in a shrinking of her outer world to what she thought of –  years later - as a kind of welfare-child ashram. Within the home, and outside of it, there were few distractions or ability to go anywhere else, and significant trauma – all forcing her to go within to what she thought of as “the deep stillness and light inside” to rest, find nourishment, solace, and strength. At 19 she experienced her first shift, seeing through the personality, and subtle perceptions revealing themselves. She never thought much of it, there had already been so much light inside, and she was so thrilled to be in the world finally so she simply went on with living. After a brief stint in television journalism, Lucy spent 15 years in Europe and New Zealand working for international humanitarian aid agencies. On return to NZ at age 31, she suddenly became extremely ill.  For six months, she was mostly bedridden. Doctors, both natural and traditional, could not find the source of the illness. Over the next few years, she had to work to earn an income but there was no strength for much else. The pain in her body was ever-present, and the fear of not knowing if this was her life forever now, was sometimes crippling. She was forced to exist in a kind of in-between world again - of much aloneness and silence, aside from work. After a few years of significant illness, she recovered strength enough to live a semi-normal life. But any time she tried to do too much, she was knocked back into illness. By 35 she was in a leadership role at a non-profit, married, with a baby on the way, just surviving day-to-day with the pressure on her physical body. On becoming a mother, she was plunged into a level of blackness that was completely shocking and previously unknown. For more than two years she descended into complete separation and couldn’t hear the guidance that had always accompanied her in her life. For the first time ever she couldn’t feel God. In 2018, after more than two years of immense struggle, an unexplainable and absolute surrender took place within, in a moment, as her two-year-old cried and reached for her. Within two months she had left the career she loved to rest in what she thought of as silence. For around a year and a half, she couldn't do much else. Lucy had never been exposed to spirituality, nor did she know anything about its concepts or traditions. She thought meditation was for “those hippy people.” Because there had been no conscious spiritual search, she had no context for what was happening. Often it was so beautiful and joyful – she didn’t need to know. There was an innate sense of trust and recognition that went beyond what needed to be seen or understood with the mind. When the need to understand did arise - some online searches helped a little, but often it all felt overwhelming, and she preferred sitting in silence to hear from within. Guidance and teaching were always present and given through hearing and images. Despite this, when particularly strange things would occur the need for the mind to understand would return. One night in 2019, before sleep, in heartfelt prayer she asked for help to cut through all the online noise and finally really grasp what was going on. There was a felt sense of need for community. As she was awakening in the morning, she heard the words “Buddha at the Gas Pump”. Lucy says, "I was stumped. I had no idea what that meant, but Googled it and found BatGap. As a result, my life has changed. Over the years BatGap has supported me deeply in the process – nurturing trust and allowing everything to unfold as it wants to." From then until now, Lucy has been called over and over into deeper surrender. She has had further shifts and many clearings. Her career of 15 years,

619. Lucy Grace

Interviews with "Ordinary" Spiritually Awakening People

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Buddha at the Gas Pump

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