Awakin Call ServiceSpace

**Please note this call is on Friday, rather than our usual Saturdays.
"Losing all of the basic functions of being a human being was the greatest teacher," says musician and composer Madhu Anziani. "It was an opportunity to go fully into the teachings I had received around energy, sound, and vibration."
In a baseball cap, hoodie, and jeans, Madhu stands behind a table, singing, swaying, and commanding a loop station, easy and natural as can be. There are no visible signs of his serious accident at the age of 23, during which a broken neck and spinal cord injury left him paralyzed from the neck down, incontinent, and unable to breathe on his own. Left only with his mind and its despairing thoughts, amid a flurry of emotions and poor prognoses, Madhu was forced to discover the gaps between his thoughts. And to realize the immense healing potential of his voice.
At the time, Madhu was just about to graduate from San Francisco State University with a degree in jazz and world music performance. He had also just attended his first reiki workshop, a Japanese form of energy healing. Supported by his parents and community, Madhu began to apply sound practices. From his hospital bed, he practiced or listened to them day and night. Two and a half months later, upon his discharge, he walked out of the hospital on his own two legs, an extraordinary healing that was featured in the book, Energy Medicine, by Jill Blakeway. With humility and grace, he distills the process to this: "The primary purpose of a voice is to create vibration. We have this beautiful gift, and we can either create harmony or disharmony." Since his recovery, Madhu has been bringing harmony in a myriad of ways to all dimensions of himself, his ancestors, and the community at large.
Madhu was born and raised in a Jewish-Puerto Rican family in the Bay Area, California. When he was in high school, he learned how to meditate from his grandmother. She also taught him how to do toning, an ancient sound healing practice in which vowels are elongated. "The vibrations can heal on the physical level, and can transform the mental, emotional, and spiritual levels, too." There is the sound, he explains, and then the silence between the sounds. The silence allows for the transformation of the sound to integrate more deeply into cellular memory. Toning, he continues, is a way to create space, and this allows us to live our lives with more spaciousness and flow.
Madhu is perhaps best known as a vocal looping artist, musician, and composer. He studied jazz and world music at San Francisco State University, and is a regular lecturer there. He chants in numerous ancient languages, including Sanskrit, Tibetan, Shipibo, Quechua, and Hebrew. His music can be found on Spotify and other platforms, as well as under the name The Sami Brothers.
Madhu is also a healer and ceremonialist, befitting of his name, which means "sweet nectar of the elders." He offers sessions in clinical hypnotherapy, vocal lessons, sound healing, and ancestral divination. Respectively, he is certified in sound, voice, and music healing from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Sanctioned as a teacher in the Pachakuti Mesa tradition of Ancestral Peruvian Healing Arts, which offers apprenticeship in earth honoring rituals and living in sacred reciprocity with spirits of nature. Blessed by Master Mingtong Gu to teach 5-Organ Sound Healing for emotional purification in the lineage of Wisdom Healing Qigong, Madhu has also been initiated as a stick diviner in the West African Dagara tradition, and serves as a medium between this world, the ancestral world, and the spirits of nature.
"The whole universe is vibration. So when we make vibrations, we are communicating with the whole universe. We are vibrational beings in a vibrational experience."
Please join us with this creative maker of harmony and healing in a call that will be part-conversation, part-workshop, with an invitation to explore sound, vibration, and t

**Please note special time for this call.
"Each of us lives in many different worlds. There's the world of work, the world of our family, and our inner worlds. These worlds inside are the ones we're most responsible for, because no one else can take care of them." - Ajaan Geoff
Thanissaro Bhikku, an American Buddhist monk of the Kammatthana (Thai Forest) tradition and more commonly known as Ajaan Geoff, embarked on a path outside his mainstream American upbringing soon after graduating from Oberlin College in 1971. Having eschewed the campus activism of his day because he didn't want to follow a crowd, Ajaan Geoff once described the defining issue of the day for him not as being the Vietnam War, but a friend's attempted suicide. When the opportunity to meditate in a religious studies class arose for him, he said "I was ripe for it. I saw it as a skill I could master, whereas Christianity only had prayer, which was pretty hit-or-miss."
Born in 1949 as Geoffrey DeGraff, he grew up in Long Island where his father had a potato farm. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1971 with a degree in European Intellectual History, he traveled to Thailand, where he eventually came to study meditation under Ajaan Fuang Jotiko, and then proceeded to become an ordained monk in 1976. His life in the Thai jungles was spartan and the rigorous schedule and training in meditation was a hard one; but it was one that forged monks of a high standard of knowledge and skill in the practice.
The Thai Forest tradition is known for upholding the strict standards of 200+ precepts of external conduct for monks as originally laid out by the Buddha, called the Vinaya. For example, the monks don't handle money and cannot ask for anything that is not freely offered; eat only one meal a day, before noon; do not spend time alone with a woman, or drive. In his early days as a monk, Ajaan Geoff himself didn't think much of the Vinaya. "They were just rules I had to put up with if I wanted to stay in Thailand and meditate. But then I began to see that every time something went wrong in the community, it was because someone had broken a rule. I also began to see the rules as protection for me in my practice."
Five years after this teacher's death, he left Thailand and came to San Diego County, USA, in 1991 at Ajaan Suwat's invitation to help establish Metta Forest Monastery. It is the first monastery in the Thai Forest Tradition in the U.S. Ajaan Geoff was appointed as its Abbott in 1993. Nestled among groves of avocado trees with a spectacular view of Mt. Palomar, the monastery serves as a place of apprenticeship for the monks to master their inner worlds through meditation and the practice of vinaya.
For thousands of outsiders who come to the monastery for visits and stays each year, it offers an opportunity to engage and live around monks who have dedicated their lives to cultivate virtue, concentration and discernment. They meditate, receive the teachings and make offerings. All of this happens in a completely non-transactional way, that Ajaan Geoff calls an economy of gifts, "an atmosphere where mutual compassion and concern are the medium of exchange; and purity of heart, the bottom line." This also helps them keep the practice and teaching in its pure form without getting commoditized in accordance with popular likes and dislikes. "In this country of ours, where democracy and the marketplace are all-powerful, the question of what sells determines what's Dhamma, even if it can't walk or fly. And who loses out? We lose out. The Dhamma doesn't lose out; it's always what it is."
Ajaan Geoff is also a prolific author of books and essays on both Buddhist practice and theory. The topics range from those that have everyday use, such as meditation guides (With Each And Every Breath), to how to deal with aging, illness and dying (Undaunted), to more niche topics, such as the Buddha's use of humor in his teachings (The Buddha Smiles), and the influence of Western Ro

**Please note special time for this call.As Parag Agarwal started moving up in his 35-year global career with Fortune 500 corporations, he began to notice a lot of suffering around him.  “I used to sit in a car with my son next to me playing with a toy while there were kids outside who were begging. Pretty early on, I decided I wanted to do something for the vulnerable.” 
His heart’s journey started with helping educate underprivileged children. But when his niece sent him videos showing how animals are abused in our society, “it opened a door of awareness for me which cannot be closed.” He decided to dedicate “the second innings of his life” to reducing the suffering faced by animals in India. In 2022, while also serving in his current role as CFO of Dr. Reddys, a multi-billion dollar Indian multinational pharma company, he co-founded India Animal Fund with the blessings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. India Animal Fund is a backbone organization for ecosystem development of the animal protection movement in India. It works to reduce animal exploitation – including their use for consumption, as objects of research and testing, and other forms of labor – and to enable them to live a life of dignity without fear, hunger, or confinement. 
“No one gets up thinking I am going to exploit and be cruel to an animal today,” he reflects. “But somehow it has become part of the system… The suffering of animals is intense.”  
In a relatively short period of time, IAF has been able to mobilize various stakeholders and has positively impacted the lives of thousands of animals.    
Parag has co-founded several other social impact organizations in this area, including Ahimsa Trust (an organization to catalyze more investment and leadership talent in the field of animal welfare), Plant-based Foods Industry Association (an industry body of plant-based alternatives start-ups), and Physicians’ Association for Nutrition (a body of doctors that educates medical professionals about nutrition). 
Another pivotal turning point in his life came more recently, when he sat a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat followed by extensive reading of Buddha's original teachings about the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. “This has been the start of my real inner transformation. I feel as if I have just taken a few steps on a very long and beautiful path.” 
Parag is a Chartered Accountant and a Company Secretary and has previously been associated with organizations such as Reckitt, Unilever, GSK Consumer Healthcare & Genpact. He is also the founder of TAP India Foundation with the vision of an India where no child is out of school. Parag’s family has taken a pledge to share 50% of their net worth with society, and are signatories to Living My Promise. 
Join us for a conversation with this passionate vegan and a voice for the vulnerable. 
The conversation will be moderated by former Awakin Calls guests Ariel Nessel and Rev. Bonnie Rose. Ari is currently focused on advancing the alternative proteins sector to address animal cruelty. Bonnie is a minister with Ventura's Center for Spiritual Living and has recently authored a book titled Dances with Dogs.

Mary Ann Brussat learned as a young teenager how to see the sacred in the everyday, and in every culture and context. When her South Dakota-based family moved to Karachi, Pakistan, in the early 1960s so her father, a physician, could work with a USAID-affiliated project for Pakistani doctors, Mary Ann became foundationally trained to be open to and aware of the beauty in the ordinary. She met local Pakistanis through the interdenominational church her family attended, the bazaars, villages, and people right next door -- and began recognizing the sign of the universal connection in that new land and people. "Our family used to say that every time we left our house in Karachi, we would see something we had never seen before," she reflects. "And it was the little things I was most fascinated by."
Along with her husband Frederic Brussat, Mary Ann for the past several decades has co-architected SpiritualityandPractice.com (S&P), an excavation of cultural and spiritual resources across faith, culture, and ethnic lines. The website's curation of materials -- from quotations and poems, to reviews of books and films, to virtual courses by leading wisdom teachers -- serve as insightful companions for those on spiritual journeys.
She lives and works with the tenet that eternal, universal truths are not localized to holy places. extraordinary acts, or a special day in the week. Instead, they are embedded in our contemporary lives -- in signs, symbols, poems, music, films, rituals, places, daily chores, and relationships. She believes anyone can develop the capacity to connect with the passage of spirit through the quotidian landscape - if they are open to "start where they are." The crux of cultivating this spiritual perspective is to entrain our cognitions -- a subtler form of re-cognition -- to relate anew with the materials of our day-to-day lives.
She shares: "a snowflake melting, a bee sucking honey, a seemingly ordinary (hu)man at a traffic light giving you directions. That's it to me. Little acts. Everyday things. Moments when we feel connected to something greater than our individual selves. Times when we serve others."
Her lens of perception shares roots with diverse religious traditions and also upholds secular and spiritual sensibilities. "Sufi mystics share that the fingerprint of the beloved is in everything," she shares, "whereas Islam holds that everything that happens inside and outside of us is 'a letter to be read', and medieval monks called it reading the book of the world." In that sense, the practice of being open to the sacred in everyday, ordinary reality propels a multi-faith worldview.
This goal speaks through Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life, a book she and Frederic co-authored in 1996 as a collection of more than 650 examples of spiritual perspectives on everyday experience. They introduced the Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy -- 37 spiritual practices that are common across world religions. In 1999, a Canadian film company turned the Brussats' Alphabet of practices into a 26-episode television series. Soon after, the Brussats wrote Spiritual Rx: Prescriptions for Living a Meaningful Life, an experiential book that helps readers explore practices befitting their particular path.
Mary Ann is an interfaith Minister ordained by the One Spirit Interfaith Seminary and a 'Christian-Sufi' Initiate of the Mevlevi Sufi Order that traces its inspiration to Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi. She remains actively attuned to the idea that "in our era of extreme polarization, we need to find points of connection among groups." She and Frederic, who is a United Church of Christ clergyman, have embraced a far-sighted view of their work from the get-go. They arrived in New York City in 1969 with no jobs and to dream up their own careers at the intersection of spirituality and culture. This was largely unheard of -- but they were persistent. Together they brought along interests and degrees in philosophy, history,

Life's one non-negotiable is to be loved and to see our love make a difference. - Matthew T. Lee
"Are we becoming more fully alive through Education?" After a decade of conventionally successful research and university teaching as a sociologist, Matthew T. Lee, Ph.D., found himself meditating upon this existential question. It triggered a shift in how he showed up in class, and what emerged at Akron University from collaborations with colleagues were Unclasses. He began to meet the students downtown instead of in a classroom. Each class would begin with a heart check-in (and sometimes haikus!). Open space was carved for silence, contemplation, and even rest. As he changed the context, shifts in content naturally followed. His intense course "Conflict and Justice" at Harvard University expanded to "Conflict, Justice and Healing".
A sociologist and former criminologist, Matt is one of the leading experts in research on human flourishing - a relative state in which all aspects of a person's life are thriving, including the contexts in which that person lives. To "measure what we truly treasure", he took an interdisciplinary approach integrating quantitative social sciences with the deep wisdom of humanities. Currently, he serves as a Research Associate at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and is co-leading the working group on love and care for the Global Study of Human Flourishing, one of the largest studies of its kind. He is also the Director of Flourishing Network, the program's community of practice. Alongside, he is a Professor of the Social Sciences and Humanities at Baylor University and a Distinguished Visiting Scholar of Health, Flourishing, and Positive Psychology at Stony Brook University, as well as a Visiting Scholar at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Matt has extensively researched and written on shifting current extractive systems towards regeneration and "daring to say love". How do we bring the grammar of business into a constructive dialogue with the grammar of love? How might we re-imagine health as flourishing that locates the individual in social, ecological, and spiritual contexts beyond merely the absence of disease? What's the role of creating open spaces in education for greater self-discovery and transformative growth? His most recent three books are: Measuring Well-Being: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Social Sciences and the Humanities; The Heart of Religion; and Transcending Crisis by Attending to Care, Emotions, and Flourishing.
Underneath the long list of his leadership positions, courses taught, papers published and awards, a simple insight grounds his daily actions - "Every person is infinitely valuable." Join us for an illuminating conversation with this inspiring teacher dedicated to fostering flourishing and well-being in our world.
This call will be moderated by our past guest and volunteer Navin Amarasuriya, who is passionate about bringing scientifically evidenced practices of well-being to schools around the world, and into his own heart.
[Some useful resources - Measure Your Flourishing Score, Flourishing App, Articles and Journals by Matt. And a couple of recent articles by others that Matt invites you to pre-read for this call --From Accessing Your Ignorance to Accessing Your Love and Fixing The System.]

**Please note special day for this call to accomodate for our guest Moshe's weekly Shabbat practice. "When you're open to meaningful coincidences, opportunities will present themselves to you all the time." Rabbi Moshe Gersht
Rabbi Moshe Gersht found himself at a pivotal decision point early in his life. At 18, he chose to leave school in response to a forced choice between pursuing his passion for music or graduating instead. It was at this crossroad and subsequent ones that he learned there are two things that shape our decisions: how we see ourselves and how we see the world.
"I wasn't walking about believing in accidents. There were no mistakes in the universe. I was looking for hidden opportunities wherever they could be found. When you're the one looking for silver linings you'll be the one who finds them", said Moshi.
By the age of 20, having "made it" as a pop-punk rockstar, Moshi found himself wondering what living a successful life actually entails. This question led him to Jerusalem, where he experienced a spiritual awakening. He went on to spend two decades in Israel immersed in Torah study, prayer, and meditation as well as the mystical teachings of Kabbalah and Chasidus.
In bridging his spiritual and mystical studies with an exploration of the inner landscape, Moshe brings a new energy to the journey of personal transformation. Today, he is an international speaker, a meditation guide, and spiritual teacher helping people find fulfillment through self-discovery. The spiritual journey is essentially a journey to ourselves, and in being true to ourselves we are able to live out our highest good. "My mission is to share the life-giving wisdom of unconditional love, by empowering [people] to awaken to a higher consciousness," he said.
Many of Moshe's talks share his uniquely holistic approach to a spiritual and fulfilling life. He is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of several books including, It's All the Same to Me, a spiritual self-help guide endorsed by Deepak Chopra, and its companion journal. He also authored The Three Conditions: how Intention, Joy, and Certainty will Supercharge Your Life and the workbook, "The 5 Steps to Manifesting and Co-Creating Your Life".
Moshe grew up in an Orthodox household in Los Angeles (U.S.) and currently lives in Israel with his wife and their children, whom he believes he learns as much from as he shares with them.
Join us on Feb. 18 for a call with this compassionate spiritual guide.