Awakin.org

On a chilly morning in November, 2013, Deborah Cohan, MD, a clinical professor and program director at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, walked into an operating suite, her curly hair tucked under a cap, not to perform surgery but to undergo a double mastectomy for...

[Note from Curators -- Call just closed. To continue the dialogue post-call with the speakers and other listeners, join here.]   In 1985, when Prof. Anil Gupta was invited by the Bangladeshi government to help restructure their agricultural sector, a moral dilemma gripped him. He...

As a surgeon based in eastern Nebraska, Demetrio Aguila, MD, has drawn patients from 34 states, 6 countries, and 4 continents, not only because of his innovative, life-changing surgeries for people suffering with chronic pain, but because of the compassionate payment option he offers: in lieu of...

As a 12-year-old Croatian-American girl in the anti-Soviet climate of the 1960s, Marilyn Turkovich boldly subscribed to the magazine ‘Soviet Life’ without her parents’ knowledge. Postal deliveries weren’t covered in brown paper at the time, which meant that the magazine...

Born in Chennai to Mrs. Visalakshi and Mr. Narayanaswamy into a musical and dance family, Bindhumalini has at once been embracing tradition and playing with its boundaries. She imbibed Carnatic music from the family, especially her grandmother Seetha Doraiswamy, a well known Jal Tarang...

“We all need a reason to wake up,” says Dr. Miller. “For me, it just took 11,000 volts.” BJ Miller, MD, is a public figure and palliative care physician who has brought a singular presence — often described by his colleagues and patients as a certain...

Vinod Sreedhar is a Goa-based social entrepreneur and environmental educator working in the realm of Systems Thinking. In 1996, he decided to walk out of college -- he was studying Commerce in Bombay -- and started composing and producing music for the advertising industry. India's newly...

“Unlike Greek, Aramaic presents a fluid and holistic view of the cosmos. The arbitrary borders found in Greek between ‘mind,’ ‘body,’ and ‘spirit’ fall away.” —Neil Douglas-Klotz, Prayers of the Cosmos  Neil Douglas-Klotz, a...

When the photographer/artist husband of renowned immigration lawyer Sheela Murthy suggested more than 25 years ago that she should freely give away detailed information about navigating the immigration laws and system on the then-nascent World Wide Web, Murthy was skeptical. Legal...

“Where do you see the company 10 years from now?” -- this is a question which perhaps every corporate leader has heard and dedicated much of their time and energies in predicting and shaping.  It was 2016 and Mekin Maheshwari, then Chief-people-officer of Flipkart, the largest...

“In almost every area of life, humanity is being invited to turn its attention to reestablishing our original unity with the earth.” – John Philip Newell "Life’s essential harmony is within each of us. So also is life’s brokenness. To be part of...

Hang Mai is a green, social entrepreneur from Vietnam. She runs Xanh Shop, which connects produce of farmers and interested urban citizens. She recently transformed the business to foster gift ecology in the associated communities. She believes that "large is small, many times...

When Jonathan Gustin was around 12 years of age, he was enthralled by a 1970s’ television show that featured a blind Buddhist priest teaching a boy his age about enlightenment and duty.  “I would live for these scenes where the priest gave the boy spiritual instruction!” he...

A blind man runs alone through Death Valley. Journalist Paul Salopek walks 21,000 miles across the world to retrace our ancestor's migration, manifesting “slow journalism”. Scientists try to detect dark matter in an abandoned 19th century iron mine in Minnesota....

Forgiveness is centered inside of you, just like love. In prison, you see all different versions of unforgivingness. And being a firefighter in prison, you understand the unforgiving nature of nature. Forgiveness occurs in the earth—just the way nature balances itself, you learn how to...

Over the last two decades, Ravi Gulati has built and nurtured a dynamic learning community of across-age learners. As the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Volunteer of Manzil - a not for profit organization in Delhi, Ravi thrives on his work with children, adolescents and youth from...

In 2013, Shay Beider accompanied an anxious little boy into the office of Dr. Fayez Ghishan, the Physician in Chief and a pediatric gastroenterologist at Diamond Children’s Hospital in Tucson, Arizona. The boy was soon to undergo an endoscopy, an invasive scope to examine the digestive...

“Whether we realize it or not, the heart is what we most carefully guard and most want to open.” John J. Prendergast, Ph.D., likens the investigation of the heart to “an archaeological dig.” Helping people excavate layers of the heart is a culmination of his...

What stands out in Hansa ji's life is that her life in the service of Yoga has been lived almost entirely within the confines of suburban Mumbai, and not as some may deem necessary, in the Himalayas. Hansa ji is the Director of The Yoga Institute– the oldest organized centre of Yoga in...

Wakanyi Hoffman is an artist of life who paints the shades of each day as a storyteller, author, mother, global citizen, journalist, and keeper of indigenous wisdom. While serving in a refugee camp in Northern Kenya in her early twenties, she came to a profound insight: "Compassion is a...

“Bowing…can be considered a technology for changing one’s consciousness.  How will the world be better if I don’t change myself?” About a year after being ordained a Buddhist monk at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage, California in 1976, Reverend...

He has cycled down the East Coast of the US in winter and ridden a motorcycle across East Timor; it’s clear that Navin Amarasuriya isn’t one for staying in his comfort zone. This is probably why, despite being one of the fifth-generation owners of the Singaporean jewelry company BP de...

Vijaya Nagarajan is an Associate Professor and former Chair in the Department of Theology/Religious Studies and in the Program of Environmental Studies at the University of San Francisco. She is also a contributor to the American Academy of Religion, an environmental...

With a unique combination of researcher, doctor, and Buddhist practitioner, Dr. Emeran Mayer has been leading the movement to “bring the brain back into medicine” for the past 40 years. His work at the David Geffen School of Medicine has illumined the mysterious connection between the...

“Father, my life is in your hands.” pleaded the young 18 year old girl to the principal of St. Xavier's College Mumbai. She begged him that she be admitted 3 months after all admissions were closed.     She was born in Mumbai, in circumstances of privilege, and...

At 12 years old, Jonathan D. Greenberg was leafing through his family’s Life magazine when, to his horror, he came across images of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. These evoked other haunting images he’d seen before—the civil war and famine in Biafra, and the Watts...

Dr. Arun Sharma, fondly known as “Guruji” by his students, is the Founder Director of the International Institute of Mahayoga & Natural Hygiene (IMANAH), USA.  In his twenties, he wanted to be a successful entrepreneur and used to be full of innovative business ideas....

In the spring of 2017, Nandini Murali, a South Indian journalist and author, returned from an out-of-town assignment to an eerily quiet home. Typically, her husband would greet her at the front door, but that morning he hadn’t answered her phone calls. It was Nandini who discovered his...

“A lot of the work that has had the most impact on people’s lives is work that has come from my own journey. Anything I’ve ever done that has any merit occurred because it came out of an experience I had in life.” Nearly 25 years ago, David VanderMolen – now a...

This Sunday April 11, 2021 at 10 am (IST) in conversation with Vipul Shaha, will be ServiceSpace volunteer Rahul B Mehta on the topic of "Journeying Back to the Roots" :  What promise does a village or rurban life hold for today's youth? What is education of the heart? What...

When Susan Collin Marks was growing up in South Africa in the apartheid era, her mother took a stand against the regime. Susan’s mother also took her, starting when she only 5 years old, into Black townships to show apartheid in action. “It is hard to imagine what it takes to be a...

“The goal of the social good sector must be to end need, not just meet need. This means, for example, that international organizations … must have a transition plan that is centered around devolving power, money and voice to local organizations.” – Patrick Meier When...

Narayanan Vaghul, former Chairman of ICICI Bank, is widely recognized in India for his role in pioneering the Indian private banking space. At ICICI, N Vaghul was at his institution-building best. His vision resulted in the formation of TDICI, (India's first venture capital company),...

On Good Friday, 2018, the Reverend Liz Tichenor, at 33 years old, stood tall and poised beside a barren altar, a blood-red stole draped over her neck and shoulders. With a solemn tone, she imagined aloud how Jesus’s mother, Mary, might have beheld her son crucified upon the cross. As...

Please join us for a special dialogue between James O'Dea and Nipun Mehta -- both of whom have dedicated their lives to service as conscious activists as well as active agents for the awakening of consciousness. James will open with an invocation that will mirror the arc of their...

Both Mandar Karanjkar and Dakshayani Athalye were brought up on a steady diet of Indian classical music. Mandar was just six when he began accompanying his mother to harmonium classes and soon showed an interest in Hindustani vocals. In his late teens, he taught himself to play flute. Back in...

"Raising people's consciousness is the way to humanize the world." Several years ago, Óscar Pérez Marcos was not satisfied with the successes and failures he had harvested throughout his life. Born in Santander, Spain, Oscar had begun working at the age of 16...

I believe we now exist in a time where the heart has been prepared for a new movement, where love becomes a practice as opposed to an idea, where vulnerability and humility become strengths as opposed to weaknesses. Growing up the youngest of 10 siblings in a Watts, Los Angeles housing...

The Divine Madmen The Bauls -- a group of mystic minstrels from Bengal -- set in motion a movement so subtle, and yet powerful that territorial boundaries have ceased to matter : geographical (India - Bangladesh), sectarian (Vaishnava Hindus and Sufi Muslims) or definitional (religious,...

“There is hope and change is entirely possible. But the systems and rules we will need to live by to ensure that all stakeholders (human and otherwise), live long and prosper now and into the future cannot be the same ones we abide by today.”  As far back as he can...

Narsanna Koppula is a pioneer Indian permaculture designer, an energetic and enthusiastic teacher, passionate nature-lover, and a staunch feminist. Padma Koppula is the other hand of this pioneering permaculture couple, whose quiet, behind-the-scenes organizational skills, calm demeanor,...

"This is not a thing I have sought, But it has come across my path and I have seized it. " -- Annie Dilliard Annie Dilliard's words point to the place where Phyllis Cole-Dai's most significant projects begin -- in that electric intersection where serendipity,...

For the past 30 years, Donald Berwick has been one of the nation's leading authorities and innovators of quality and improvement in the U.S. healthcare system. A pediatrician by training, a professor at both Harvard Medical School and the School of Public Health, and a top...

When entrepreneur and “love activist” Ryland Engelhart was feeling hopeless about the damage human beings were doing to the planet, there was a solution so obvious that it was practically hidden beneath his own two feet: the soil. Upon discovering that healthy food heals the soil that...

DVR Seshadri is one of the most respected Professors of business, with a teaching career of 20 years across premier b-schools of India including ISB and various IIMs. His areas of interest among others include: B2B Marketing, Innovation and Entrepreneurship & Intrapreneurship.  While...

When Dr. Peniel Joseph was growing up in New York City during the 1980s and 1990s, a child of a Haitian immigrant single mother, he learned about how the civil rights movement had transformed America, ended legalized segregation, secured black voting rights and moved the nation closer to Dr....

Last November, Matthew Fox had a riveting (and too brief) Awakin Calls conversation, hosted by Rahul Brown and Aryae Coopersmith, on the topic of "Fidelity vs Faith: Bowing to the Heart Over Authority." Matthew is a spiritual theologian and scholar of mystic...

“Love like life depends on it, be curious and expect miracles.” Ruth Pittard has practiced learning and transforming in love for most of her 74 years. A forward-thinking educator, she spent over 30 years supporting service-learning initiatives in her community and her...

Prahlad Singh Tipanya is a name that needs little introduction as one of the most compelling folk voices of Kabir in India today. He sings in the Malwi folk style from Madhya Pradesh and has an incomparable ability to sing and explain the words of Kabir, making them easily accessible to the...

“We believe that radical, democratic change in education occurs through grassroots mobilization of teachers and students and the empowerment of those most directly impacted by injustice. … [C]onsciousness development is key to our liberatory education model.” – Freedom...