Swami Swaroopananda is a senior disciple of Swami Vishnudevananda. A practicing yogi from a very young age, Swami Swaroopananda has dedicated his life to the practice and teaching of yoga. He taught in Yoga Teacher Training Courses around the world and is currently teaching advanced yoga philosophy courses and lectures internationally. He is Director of the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat and acharya (spiritual director) for the Sivananda centers and ashrams in the Bahamas and the Middle East. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres.

Snatam Kaur is an American kirtan singer and peace activist, who learned to sing in the Sikh musical style with her mother. One of the most popular New Age artists of our time, she has been recording music since 2000; Her best-known CDs include Shanti, Grace, and Liberation’s Door. Her music can be heard around the world in venues from yoga studios to schools to Hollywood films and in the homes of her fans worldwide. Snatam Kaur has an amazing ability to transform traditional chants into a contemporary sound that appeals to the modern ear and awakens an ancient yearning in the soul. While traveling the world on tour she also teaches yoga and meditation to children and adults alike, a part of her commitment to give people tools for a daily experience of inner peace.

snatamkaur.com

Sopurkh Singh began studying Kundalini Yoga and Meditation with his teacher Yogi Bhajan in 2000. He now teaches retreats, workshops and classes all over the world with his wife, Snatam Kaur.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro is an award–winning author of over thirty-six books on religion and spirituality. He received rabbinical ordination from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and holds a Ph.D. in religion from Union Graduate School. Rami co-directs the One River Foundation, and is a Contributing Editor at Spirituality & Health magazine where he writes the Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler column and hosts the magazine’s podcast, Spirituality & Health with Rabbi Rami.

oneriverfoundation.org

Kyriacos C. Markides, PhD, a professor of sociology at the University of Maine, has been exploring the life and worldview of Christian shamans, saints, mystics, hermits and healers for the last 30 years. He is the author of several books on Christian mystical spirituality, including his trilogy The Magus of Strovolos and the follow-up trilogy The Mountain of Silence, which reveal the mystical wisdom tradition of Eastern Christianity, little-known in the West. Kyriacos lectures and leads workshops throughout the world and has appeared on national and international television and radio programs.

Emily Markides, PhD, received her doctoral degree from the Counselor Education Program at the University of Maine. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on Complementary Energetic Practices: An Exploration into the World of Maine Women Healers. She has written many articles, including “Creating a Stable World Peace,” “From Poetry to Community Building,” and “Energetic Healing and its Correspondence to Eastern Orthodox Spirituality.” She has taught courses in Peace Studies and served as Interim Director of the Peace and Reconciliation Studies Program at the University of Maine, where she currently teaches as adjunct faculty on issues concerning peace and the environment.

Shaykh Abdul Haqq is the national director of the Naqshandi Haqqani Sufi Order of America. He is a disciple of the famous Sufi Master, Shaykh Nazim Adil Al-Haqqani from Cyprus. He travels all over the world teaching Sufism and Islamic mysticism in universities, churches, synagogues, temples, and spiritual centers of diverse faiths.

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo became a Buddhist while still in her teens. At the age of 20, she traveled to India and become one of the first Westerners to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun. The international best-seller Cave in the Snow by Vicki Mackenzie chronicles Tenzin’s 12 years of seclusion in the Himalayas. In 2008, the head of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage gave her the rare title of Jetsunma (venerable master). Deeply concerned with the plight of Buddhist nuns, Jetsunma Tenzin established Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in India. She has written two books: Reflections on a Mountain Lake and Into the Heart of Life.

Acharya Mangalananda is a direct disciple of Sri Anandamayi Ma, a venerated Indian saint of the 20th century. Though an American by birth, a lifetime of Indian culture has given him a deep immersion into the traditional spiritual music of India. He is now a kirtan singer well-versed in the traditional kirtan style of India’s rural villages.

Devoted to Sri Anandamaya Ma and her direct disciples, he helped establish a spiritually-based school for local village children after living in her ashram. After teaching in the school for twelve years, he toured internationally to give kirtan presentations and spiritual workshops. In 2013, he returned to the United States and now hosts a small ashram in the San Francisco Bay area, sharing kirtan and classes.