Sat Shree

Born Scot Barbour, he spent decades in an ordinary working life, with a career, a family and everything that comes with both, before any of this began. On 4 January 1998 that changed: what he describes as a series of sudden and unexpected shifts in consciousness began, and went on altering how he understood himself.

He went to India and studied intensively with Sri Atmananda for six years. Meher Baba, whom he encountered as a teenager, and later Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are the other influences he names. Back in the United States he began working with individuals, which grew into the programmes and retreats now gathered under New Dharma.

The teaching puts direct experience ahead of belief and leans on inquiry and meditation. What distinguishes it is less the awakening than what comes after: his emphasis falls on carrying realisation into the body, the emotions and relationships rather than treating it as an event that settles matters. He has written a two-part commentary on the Bhagavad Gita and a book called Song of Liberation.