515. Gillian Ross

Posted on September 4, 2019 by Rick Archer

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 UK in 1940, she migrated to Australia as an academic in the early sixties. Her Western education gave her an Honours Science Degree, a Masters degree in Philosophy and a Doctorate in the Behavioural Sciences but left her feeling increasingly restless and unfulfilled. There was a growing awareness that her intellectual conditioning had disconnected her from the natural spontaneity and mystical riches of her childhood.

The deep love she felt for her children awakened lost memories of spiritual connection. She began to meditate, practice yoga and study Eastern philosophies. In her early forties she left her marriage, her city life, and academic career and took her family of two young sons, two dogs and two cats off to the Blue Mountains of NSW to explore an alternative lifestyle. She has never looked back! After many years of feeling like a fish out of water, she came to understand what it means to “flow in the current of the Eternal Tao”.

She trained as a yoga teacher and shiatsu therapist and has become a best selling ABC author (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) of relaxation and meditation CDs and a yoga video as well as publishing four books on science and mysticism and the evolution of consciousness.

After her sons left home she moved even further into the wild. Over the last 20 years, she has fallen in love with 40 acres of natural bush adjacent to a powerful sacred aboriginal site in Northern NSW. She nurtures it as a haven for spiritual retreats and residential weekends on evolutionary spirituality and mystic meditation, delighting in sharing with others some of the philosophies and practices that have helped to bring her out of spiritual bleakness into a lasting sense of peace, purpose and, above all, joy.

Books:

CDs:

Relaxation Audio CD

Links:

Website: drgillianross.com
Connection: An Awakening Experience (blog post)
Consciousness V Catastrophe: Reflections on the Next Stage of Human Evolution (YouTube video)
Email: drgillianross@gmail.com
Toolgoolawa School (mentioned in the interview)

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Interview recorded August 24, 2019

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

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514. Dorothy Walters

Posted on August 25, 2019 by Rick Archer

Dorothy Walters, PHD, 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 the mountains as well as various streams and canyons.

She underwent major Kundalini awakening in 1981 (a phenomenon totally unfamiliar to her as well as to most of her contemporaries at the time); since then she has devoted her life to researching and writing about this subject and to witnessing the unfolding of this process within herself as well as assisting others on a similar path through writing and other means. As someone who made her extensive journey without the direction of any external leader or guru, church, or established order, she is a strong believer in the “guru within,” the inner guide rather than the external authority figure or institution.

She feels that universal Kundalini awakening is the means for planetary and personal evolution of consciousness, and that evidence of planetary initiation is becoming more and more prevalent. Her Kundalini awakening and subsequent process of unfolding are described in her memoir Unmasking the Rose, A Record of a Kundalini Initiation. Her poems taken from her four previous volumes are published as “Some Kiss We Want: Poems Selected and New.” Her article on “Kundalini and the Mystic Path” was included in Kundalini Rising, an anthology from Sounds True Publications. Her poems, which have been included in many anthologies and journals, have been set to music and sung at the Royal Opera House in London as well as Harvard University, used as texts for sermons and read aloud in churches, included in doctoral projects, been frequently quoted, and have given inspiration to many. Recently, a pilgrim to Petra read one of her poems aloud while there.

She often gives counsel and referral free of charge to those undergoing spontaneous Kundalini awakening and/or spiritual transformation.

Books:

Website: Kundalini Splendor

Email: dorothywalters72@gmail.com

Conversations with Andrew Harvey:

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Interview recorded August 17, 2019.

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

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513. Shyamji Bhatnagar

Posted on August 18, 2019 by Rick Archer

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) are the basis for Sri Shyamji’s extraordinary intuition and unique chanting of sounds and mantra. For millennia this tradition was passed down from generation to generation through an oral tradition which preserved its purity. It is a rare opportunity to learn the science of sound from a true master.

Website: chakrainstitute.com

Book: Microchakras: InnerTuning for Psychological Well-being

Email: admin@chakrainstitute.com

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Interview recorded August 13, 2019

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

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