Our Contributors

Bedrij, Orest.  A theoretical physicist, a space scientist, an author and multidisciplinary researcher into the foundation of nature. For the past forty-five years, Dr. Bedrij has been doing research into the unity of nature, the science of awareness, and into the physics and philosophy underlying ultimate reality and the laws of physics, i.e., searching the answers to our questions about why nature is the way it is and who we really are by way of physics and direct experience.

 

 

Bharaj, Ranjeet Singh.  Recently retired from the practice of dentistry in Vaughan, Ontario in Canada where she now lives with her son and daughter-in-law. She was born in Nairobi, Kenya where she received her early education. Then her parental family moved to London, UK where she received her university and professional education. She practiced dentistry in the UK before moving to Montreal, PQ. She has had a long dentistry practice in various places in Quebec and Ontario.

 

 

Chodos, Bob.  A lay leader at Temple Shalom, the Reform synagogue in Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada, and a member of Interfaith Grand River, the region’s interfaith organization. He received his elementary and secondary education at Adath Israel Hebrew day school in Montreal, and has continued his learning through Kolel, a liberal Jewish adult education institute in Toronto, and through several study groups, both Jewish and interfaith, in Waterloo Region. A writer and editor, he was the editor of Compass: A Jesuit Journal from 1987 to 1997 and is currently managing editor of Inroads: The Canadian Journal of Opinion.

 

 

Dubey, Rajendra Narain. (b.1938) Educated in mathematics and civil engineering. With early education in Bihar, India, he was awarded a Ph.D. in civil engineering by the University of Waterloo in Canada. Dr. Dubey's interest in spirituality and Indian Philosophy began in 1977 under the guidance of his guru, Brahmarishi Vishwatma Bawra. He translated two of his guru’s books from Hindi into English and is a founding member of Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc.

 

 

 Jha, V.N. Taught Sanskrit at Pune University, India from where he retired as the Director, Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit. He served as a visiting professor in Humboldt University, Germany; Nagoya University, Japan; University of Lausanne,Switzerland; and Mahatma Gandhi Institute, Mauritius. He also served as the first Chair of Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He supervised 35 Ph. D. scholars, edited and authored numerous publications. 

 

 

Kapoor, Garima Talwar.  Executive Assistant and Special Policy Advisor to the Assistant Deputy Minister of Income Security and Pension Policy at the Ministry of Finance in Ontario, Canada. Her main interests are in understanding how various sectors of society (government, civil society and private industry, for example) can work together to improve the well-being of populations worldwide. She holds a Masters of Public Health from the University of Toronto, is an avid reader and dancer.

 

 

 Kropf,Richard.  Richard William Kropf was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1932. He graduated from Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit, with a Bachelor in Liberal Arts, in 1954 and from St. John's Provincial Seminary, Ply­mouth, Michigan, in 1958 with a Bachelor degree in Theology awarded by the Catholic University of America. After ordination to the priesthood in 1958, he worked as a parish priest in the Diocese of Lansing, Michi­gan until 1968. He went on to earn masters and doctoral degrees in phi­losophical and systematic theology from the University of Ottawa in 1971 and 1973 and, after research in France, was awarded a doctorate in sacred theology by the Université  and the Université St-Paul.

Following a decade of teaching courses in philosophy, religious studies, the psychology of religion, and theology in various colleges and seminaries in Michigan, and after further study in the Holy Land fol­lowed by travels in Egypt and Greece, Kropf sought official Church permission to live in solitude as a hermit or anchorite, taking permanent vows in this state in 1985.

 

Lauricella, Sharon.  Sharon Lauricella is a Communication scholar and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at UOIT in Oshawa, Ontario in Canada. She holds a doctoral degree from the University of Cambridge (UK), and a BA from Wheaton College (Massachusetts). Sharon's research focuses on spiritual communication, digital feminist identities, and the use of mobile technologies in higher education. She has been recognized for her teaching excellence with a variety of teaching awards at the faculty and university level.  Web address: www.sharonlauricella.com 

 

Lauricella, Peter. Peter Lauricella was born in Boston, and spent most of his life in southeastern Massachusetts before retiring to Port Perry, Ontario, Canada, where he and his wife of 49 years now reside.  He taught in the public school system in Massachusetts and holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Bridgewater State University.  A hospice volunteer and a member of the local arts council, Peter is also a talented polychromatic segmented woodturner, designing and turning wooden bowls and other vessels using contrasting woods from almost every continent in the world. Peter is Sharon's father and supports her in her academic endeavours. Sharon considers her father a most esteemed Professor Emeritus in the School of Hard Knocks. This is their first coauthored academic article. 

http://PeterLauricella.com     

Peter.Lauricella@powergate.ca

 

Milne,Sandy. Sandy is a home-grown Canadian woman, born and raised in rural Southern Ontario and holding and undergraduate degree in Computer Science from University of Waterloo and a graduate degree in Catholic Thought from St. Jerome University in Waterloo.  She has worked in the fields of information technology, education and religion.  Since retiring from paid employment, she has volunteered in a variety of activities, mostly music or faith-related.  In additions to serving as past chair of Kitchener-Waterloo Council of Churches, steering committee member of Interfaith Grand River, and music librarian for the Inshallah Community Choir at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, she is deeply involved in the lives of her mother, her husband, her children and their children, as well as the rest of her extended family.

 

Negoita, Mona.  Mona Negoita is a physiotherapist working in intensive rehabilitation in Kitchener, Canada. She received her physiotherapy degree at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, after immigrating to Canada from Romania where she worked as a general physician. She has always been passionate about health care and education and has pursued a Masters in Medical Education at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden. Mona is also involved in developing a charitable organization (Abrazos Canada), working with the disabled and disadvantaged in Latin America.

 

 

 Rafiq, Sami. Sami Rafiq is a professor of English at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. She is a translator, writer, poet and novelist who celebrates human values.

 

 

George was born in 1945 in Karachi, India of Polish parents who were liberated from concentration camps after the Second World War. He frequently ponders why he chose to incarnate in the epic centers of holy teachings in the East, and why there is currently so must unrest in that part of the world.  George subsequently found answers to his spiritual questions in the Gita, Upanishads, Buddhism, Taoism and Zen texts, the manuscripts of Blavatsky and to date, The Temple of The Presence.

 

 

Talwar, Shiv. Received his undergraduate degree in civil engineering from the Punjab University, India and his graduate degrees from Lehigh University, USA and the University of Waterloo, Canada. He retired from his career in 1996 and established Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. in 2000. He has been serving as its President since its inception. He owes his spiritual education to his parents, his school teachers in India and his mentor, Swami Vishwatma Bawra to whom he is eternally indebted

 

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