Allan Ajaya, PhD

Allan received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He followed this with a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin, in the Psychiatry Department. Early experiences with psychedelics led him to discover how transcendent experiences can free one from identifying with his contracted personality. However, the ability to see beneath the veneer of consensual reality, to the archetypal realm, and to experience the underlying unity of all that exists, using psychedelics, is short lived. He turned toward spiritual practices as a way of remaining in transpersonal awareness. He studied with with Eastern spiritual teachers, notably, Chogyam Trungpa, Swami Satchidananda, and Swami Rama. He was initiated as a swami on the banks of the Ganges, in Rishikesh, India. For the next twenty years he periodically travelled to India, for further study, to teach, and to deepen his meditation. When in the United States he maintained a private practice of psychotherapy in New York City. He also taught meditation and yoga psychology in a graduate program at the Himalayan Institute. During this time he authored, compiled, and edited several books. Among these are, Psychotherapy East and West, and Living with the Himalayan Masters. In 1972 he established Shakti bookshop, in Madison Wisconsin. It was the first spiritual bookshop in the Midwest, offering books from many spiritual and psychotherapeutic traditions. Shakti was a beloved source of inspiration and wisdom for consciousness explorers for more than forty years. Allan has studied with and been inspired by several innovators of experiential therapy and guides in the practice of self inquiry, including, Carl Whitaker, Arnold Mindell, Ron Kurtz, the founder of Hakomi Therapy, David Grove, who developed metaphor therapy and “clean language”, and Jean Klein. These consciousness explorers share a common interest in enabling us to uncover and become aware of all that we are.