Buddha at the Gas Pump

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757. Ruben Laukkonen

June 24, 2026

Ruben is the director of the Flourishing Intelligence Program (FLIP) at Linacre College, University of Oxford. Ruben is also co-director of the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, a Senior Researcher within Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry, and fellow at Linacre College. Ruben has made significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness, meditation, and insight. His work also reveals a pathway towards better and safer artificial intelli...

756. Karen Shanley

June 13, 2026

I didn’t set out to become a spiritual teacher. I was the kid with questions that wouldn’t let go — why are we here, what happens when we die, is this really all there is? At eleven, I had my first spiritual awakening, which introduced me to what I call my Inner Teacher, a wise guiding presence that’s been with me ever since.Those early experiences set me on a long journey across traditions and continents, including several years on a mountaintop in India with a 120-year-old enlightened maste...

755. Jonathan Ashford

May 23, 2026

Jonathan lived the definition of material excess, twenty-five years climbing the corporate ladder in marketing and technology as a C-level executive, accumulating possessions, and actively avoiding anything spiritual. That was until May 22, 2023.On that day, Jonathan died. His skin turned yellow, his organs failed, and he was gone for three hours. What happened during those three hours wasn’t just a glimpse of white light. He experienced complete immersion in divine consciousness, received pr...