Today is an exclusive live video interview with Loch Kelly, for the interview series “Interviews with the Leading Edge.”

In this series of interviews, I engage with people who are on the leading edge of transformational change, doing work to further the consciousness revolution and how it is manifesting in culture, politics and spirituality, in order to help bring along a more enlightened society.

Loch Kelly is one such person.

Loch, who is a meditation teacher, psychotherapist, and founder of the Open-Hearted Awareness Institute, is also the author of the book “Shift Into Freedom,” which was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of the Year 2015 by Spirituality and Health Magazine (along with authors such as Matthieu Richard, Thich Naht Hanh, Pema Chodron, Mark Nepo, and Elizabeth Gilbert).

Loch, a graduate of Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary, was awarded a fellowship to study forms of non-dual meditation in Sri Lanka India and Nepal from 1981-1982 and has since delved into a variety of disciplines under teachers from around the world. He studied Buddhism with Professor Lily de Silva at the University of Kandy, Sri Lanka, Insight Meditation with Godwin Samararatne and at the Theravada monasteries, Inter-Spiritual Contemplative Meditation with Fr. Bede Griffiths and Anthony de Mello, Advaita at Sri Ramana Ashram, and Dzogchen and Mahamudra Meditation with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche in Nepal.

Loch spent 10 years establishing homeless shelters and community lunch programs and working in a community mental health clinic in Brooklyn, New York. He also served as Coordinator of Counseling and Interspiritual Chaplain at Union Theological Seminary and worked extensively with families of 9/11 victims.

As a licensed psychotherapist, Loch has been teaching seminars, supervising clinicians and practicing awareness psychotherapy in NYC for 25 years. He served on the New York Insight Teachers Council and was authorized to teach Sutra Mahamudra by Mingyur Rinpoche and invited to join with Adyashanti to teach direct realization of your true nature. Loch has collaborated with neuroscientists at Yale, UPenn and NYU in the study of awareness training can enhance compassion and wellbeing.

Loch teaches in a non-sectarian human being lineage in an adult education style based in the earliest non-dual wisdom traditions, modern science and psychotherapy. Loch is grateful for all his teachers and loves to share from his own experience that has given him great joy, freedom and love. He offers group awareness training, workshops on effortless mindfulness and heart mindfulness, retreats, and individual pointing-within instructions.

I met with Loch in his office in New York City, and there our conversation delved into the process of awakening and what exactly it is; why awakening is now available to everyone and not just something that only someone on a monastic path can focus on; what he means by shift into freedom; why for a person to wake up they also need to grow up; what his work with the Open Hearted Awareness Institute encompasses; his work with scientists at the Effortless Mindfulness Research Center; and more.

Loch is a true healer and a sage, and someone who has helped many people walk the path to awakening and liberation and by so doing, become a much more full and well-developed human being. To learn more about Loch’s work and his new book “Shift Into Freedom,” you can go to https://lochkelly.org/