August Turak interview: the Quest for Enlightenment

Message in a Bottle: Reflections on the Spiritual Path is a new book from the TAT Foundation Press. Rather than another book by a spiritual teacher, this book takes the approach of asking spiritual seekers, those still on the path to “finding,” to share their stories and wisdom. Interestingly, each contributor to this volume also … Continue reading "Reflections on the Spiritual Path – new book"

August “Augie” Turak was the first student of Richard Rose and played an key role in introducing me to the spiritual search through his founding of the Self Knowledge Symposium. Thus, I was happy for the opportunity to interview him in support of his new book, Not Less Than Everything: One Man’s Quest for Spiritual … Continue reading "August Turak interview: the Quest for Enlightenment"

What happens when you take the rigor of a physicist and combine that with the earnest desire of a seeker of enlightenment? In his mid-twenties, Shawn Pethel picked up a book by Ken Wilber and was introduced to Eastern philosophy and the idea of enlightenment. As a scientist, he recognized that these Eastern meditators were … Continue reading "Shawn Pethel Interview: What am I?"

My reading this episode is two extracts from the works of Ramana Maharshi. The first is an excerpt from a longer work entitled “Who Am I,” and the second is titled “Self Enquiry.” The “Self Enquiry” piece was written around 1901, and both writings appear in Author Osborne’s The Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi. … Continue reading "Ramana Maharshi – Instructions for Self Enquiry"

My reading this episode is an excerpt from Eddie Traversa’s book, Truth Realization. Eddie was an extraordinarily sincere spiritual teacher and friend who passed away in 2022. His website no longer exists, but at least as of the time of this writing, his book is still available, and you can listen to my podcast interview … Continue reading "A Reading from Eddie Traversa’s Truth Realization"

Mike Gegenheimer is president of the TAT Foundation, coauthor with me of Passages: An Introduction and Commentary on Richard Rose’s Albigen System, and helps facilitate a self-inquiry group based in Columbus, Ohio. In this episode, we delve into his years with Richard Rose and the early days of the TAT Foundation, his experiences with the … Continue reading "Mike Gegenheimer: the Magic of Rapport"

This episode is from an interview titled “Satsang with Shawn Nevins” conducted by Reverend Saina Fernandez from the Awakening Together group. It took a few minutes to find our groove, but thanks to the Reverend’s great questions, this interview hit several key topics and moments of inspiration including discussions on honesty, focus, intuition, and the … Continue reading "Shawn Nevins Interview – Honesty, Focus, Intuition, and the Natural Koan"

My reading this episode is an excerpt from my book, Subtraction: The Simple Math of Enlightenment, where I describe the moments that led up to my enlightenment experience. It occurred as I was reading a transcript of Franklin Merrell-Wolff’s Induction talk, so this reading is a mix of my words and quotes from Merrell-Wolff’s talk. … Continue reading "Induction and Subtraction – the plunge into enlightenment"

This episode’s reading features two dialogues from the book Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi. Covering the period 1935 to 1939, the book is an excellent resource for the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and was a constant companion while I lived in a cabin on Richard Rose’s farm. Ramana Maharshi’s teaching are best not read cover … Continue reading "Ramana Maharshi – Exploring Who am I?"

This episode’s reading is a selection called “The Basis of Awareness” from Instant Zen, a translation by Thomas Cleary of the writings of zen master Foyan. Foyan was a 12th century Chinese Zen master and is one of the few Zen masters that Cleary felt equal to the great ones of the Golden Age of … Continue reading "Foyan – The Basis of Awareness"