Lawrence Edwards, Ph.D. has practiced and taught meditation for over 35 years. He is the Founder and Director of The Anam Cara Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching meditative practices. The name Anam Cara is ancient Gaelic for "friend of the soul."

Dr. Edwards is trained in biofeedback and neurofeedback (BCIAC EEG Fellow and board certified neurotherapist, licensed psychotherapist - LMHC, www.optimalmind.net). He has been on the faculty of New York Medical College as a clinical instructor in the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine since 1998. He maintains a private practice in Bedford, New York, working with people interested in spiritual growth and Kundalini, as well as doing biofeedback, neurofeedback, transpersonal psychotherapy, hypnosis, enhanced performance training, and meditation training. He has been a frequent lecturer on altered states of consciousness and he is a three term chairman of the board of directors for the Kundalini Research Network (2000-2002, 2006-present). Most recently he has studied with His Eminence Tsewang Seetar Rinpoche, head of the ancient Sangye Teng Monastery in Bhutan and received empowerments from him.

Dr. Edwards grew up on Long Island, New York. In 1970 he began studying meditation and psychology in college. He continued, in part under the transpersonal psychologist, Dr. Kenneth Ring’s instruction, at the University of Connecticut, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1974. During this time he practiced Transcendental Meditation and then began studying Tibetan Buddhism under Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

For ten years he was a therapist, Vice-President and Assistant Executive Director of The Country Place, a private Jungian psychiatric treatment center based on a therapeutic community model. There he was trained in group and individual psychotherapy, Jungian archetypal psychology and bioenergetics therapy. During his tenure at The Country Place he also worked for more than two years as a volunteer, teaching weekly classes in meditation and yoga for inmates at a federal penitentiary. In 1986 he earned his Ph.D. in Psycho-Educational Processes from Temple University where he was honored as a University Scholar. He was the program manager for Temple’s Center for the Study of Psychoeducational Processes (PEP Center). He did organizational consulting, training and lead workshops for the PEP Center. His doctoral research was on delineating the types of psychological change and spiritual growth experienced through the long-term practice of a Kundalini based yoga. In the early 1990’s Dr. Edwards was trained and certified in hypnotherapy by the American Institute of Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy and by the New York Society for Ericksonian Psychotherapy & Hypnotherapy.

Years of study at ashrams in the United States and India are just part of Dr. Edwards’ extensive background in yoga, meditation, and the dynamics of Kundalini. He spent three years preparing to become a Vedic monk under the direction of Swami Muktananda. He was a disciple of Swami Muktananda’s from 1976 until Muktananda took mahasamadhi in 1982. For the next 12 years he continued to study, teach and serve under Gurumayi Chidvilasananda’s tutelage. He has run meditation centers and an ashram in the United States and he has taught meditation at a variety of institutions in Canada, India and the United States. For years he helped to train meditation teachers and meditation center leaders for the SYDA Foundation. He headed up a team of professionals who dealt with individuals going though intense Kundalini processes in the ashrams. At Swami Muktananda’s ashram in Ganeshpuri, India he served as clinic manager and helped to run the mobile hospital that provided care for the desperately poor native villages in the rural area surrounding the ashram.

Dr. Edwards has studied and practiced in the Kundalini yoga tradition, Tibetan Buddhist and Huichol Indian shamanic traditions. These rich reservoirs of wisdom have expanded and deepened the transpersonal and Jungian psychological perspectives of his professional training. His mystical experiences began as a young child and have continued throughout his adult life. They have been the real guiding force behind his studies and training. His profound experience of the Divine present in everyone, at all times, and in all places has lead him to a life of service in teaching and supporting others on their journeys into the Divine.

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