The Nature of the Mind: The Science and Spirituality of Consciousness

Menas C. Kafatos, PhD, is a quantum physicist, cosmologist, his work also emphasizes natural and anthropogenic hazards for the Earth. He works as researcher and philosopher extensively on consciousness and the nature of the mind. He studied with renown physicist Philip Morrison at M.I.T., who was a student of J. Robert Oppenheimer. He has 50 years of experience in undergraduate and graduate teaching and research.

Menas is the Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor of Computational Physics and Director, Institute for Earth, Computing, Human and Observing at Chapman University in California. He is foreign member of the Romanian Academy of Science and the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST); an international scholar working with the Division of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering also having served as an advisor on the BK21 Plus Eco-Leader Education Center at Korea University in Seoul, Korea and in the past, an affiliated researcher at the National Observatory of Athens, Greece.

Menas has authored 350-plus articles and published or co-authored 26 books, including The Conscious Universe, Looking In, Seeing Out and Science, Reality & Everyday Life and has many social media and blogs. He is often interviewed for international television networks, newspapers, and radio.

Subhash Kak is Regents Professor at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. He has held prior positions in UK, Australia, and India. He has translated many Sanskrit texts authored nearly forty books of which the most recent are “The Age of Artificial Intelligence” and “Project Omega: The Future of Life in the Solar System”. He has been a member of the Indian Prime Minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) since 2018.

Prantik Kundu is a neuroscientist and biophysicist with specialities in magnetic resonance imaging and psychiatric disease. A senior scientist in a startup to make MRI technology more accessible, he draws from years of expertise from many years in academia and research.
He was an assistant professor in psychiatry and radiology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine for several years, where he still serves as adjunct professor.

Prantik received his training at the Brain Mapping Unit at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the Section on Functional Imaging Methods at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, DC. His papers have been published in Cerebral Cortex, NeuroImage, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Kundu also has strong interests in Indic philosophy, having completed an undergraduate independent study on the theoretical implications of Kali and having been a Research Fellow at the Mind and Life Summer Institute, where the interface between the Buddhist philosophy and the neurosciences is investigated and practiced.

Swami Brahmananda is Manager of the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat and senior staff of the Sivananda organization. A long-time practitioner of yoga, he regularly teaches yoga philosophy and meditation for the Sivananda Yoga Teacher Training Courses as well as meditation immersion courses. He is a much-loved, inspiring, and knowledgeable teacher.