BONUS – Connecting the Dots, Years Later: Reflections on Conscious Dialogue and Enduring Inquiry
Revisiting the conversations that continue to speak across time, reminding us that inquiry itself is an act of awakening.
There are moments when the past returns not as nostalgia but as resonance—an echo vibrating through time, reminding us that certain conversations never truly end. When I first sat before a microphone in the Autumn of 2007 to record what would become Connecting the Dots, I could not have known how deeply those dialogues would shape my thinking—or how their themes would still pulse with relevance all these years later.
Of particular interest is my vividly recalling the steep learning curve of editing the inaugural episode, which unexpectedly fell to me at the last minute. Bill Simpson, my friend and interviewer for that first program, had planned to handle the editing while I learned the software. As fate would have it, Bill—an on-air personality in Philadelphia at the time—was suddenly pulled into a new schedule and couldn’t complete the work. The task, therefore, came to me. So I dug in overnight, experimenting with the controls until I understood just enough to assemble the program and reach the station with only minutes to spare. All these years later, I remain thankful for that baptism by fire; it led me to edit every subsequent episode and eventually gave me the confidence to handle both audio and video production—skills now essential in my newly launched podcast.
The redesign of the archive and the rediscovery of the themes discussed—across these eleven original broadcasts—feels less like unearthing a relic than encountering an early reflection of a living philosophy. Listening again, I hear not the voice of a younger self but the same current of inquiry that has carried forward into every dimension of my life: teaching Transcendental Meditation, writing on consciousness, and developing frameworks for human evolution. These early recordings, gathered between 2007 and 2008, were already tracing the outlines of questions that would come to define much of my later work: Who are we beneath our socially constructed and conditioned identities? What is the nature of consciousness? How do we evolve—individually and collectively—toward greater coherence, compassion, and creativity?
The Original Vision
Connecting the Dots began as an experiment in synthesis. Each week, we explored the unseen threads linking spirituality and science, history and consciousness, the inner and outer dimensions of human life. The show’s name was both an aspiration and a method—a way of seeing the world as a living pattern of irreducible interdependence rather than a collection of isolated facts or segregated systems.
Produced under the auspices of Radical Scholar, Inc.—the 501(c)(3) organisation I had the honour of founding in the autumn of 2006, and which continues to do good work—the program sought to extend scholarly inquiry beyond the academy, offering a space where ancient wisdom and modern research could speak to one another in plain, human terms. The goal was never simply to inform but to awaken curiosity—to help listeners sense that their own awareness was the missing “dot” completing each constellation of ideas—a theme that continues to animate my current work and writing.
Conversations that Still Resonate
Revisiting the episodes now almost two decades later, I am struck by how prophetic many of them feel.
In the trilogy The Power of Thought—Implications for Self, Society, and Social Evolution—we were exploring the mechanics of consciousness long before “neuroplasticity” became a seemingly ubiquitous term among those beyond the halls of the academy. Those discussions anticipated much of what neuroscience now confirms: that our thoughts literally sculpt the brain, and by extension, the world we inhabit.
When poet Dr. Coleman Barks joined the program for a two-part dialogue on The Mystical Poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi, we spoke not only of verse but of vibration—the way beauty transmits understanding without the need for translation. His reflections on Rumi’s ecstatic surrender to love feel even more urgent today, in an age that too often mistakes data for wisdom and efficiency for empathy. Listening now was especially meaningful given my recitation of the opening Rumi poem during my 2017 panel participation at Harvard Divinity School. In this instance, moments such as listening to Dr. Barks resonant voice and knowing the he having shared the back-story of the poem and my sharing it at HDS, makes this archive refresh even more meaningful.
The conversation with Dr. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban about her translation of Anténor Firmin’s The Equality of the Human Races remains one of the most vital in the series. Firmin’s 1885 treatise was a declaration of intellectual sovereignty, a scientific refutation of racism written in a time that offered him no audience. That this conversation resounds decades later—when questions of equity and human dignity remain unresolved—underscores the cyclical nature of awakening and the ever-important work of providing packets of knowledge for broader consideration my keen minds and open hearts the world over.
With Dr. Charles Finch III, our dialogue on Human Origins and the Future of Humanity traced humanity’s lineage from the African cradle to the cosmic horizon. Dr. Finch spoke of evolution not as a biological accident but as a spiritual mandate—a theme that echoes throughout my later research into consciousness and transcendence.
And then there was the exchange with FORD on Becoming God, a discussion that gestured toward the essence of self-realization. His central insight—that the divine is not distant but latent within consciousness itself—was both daring and familiar, a truth that mystics of every age have quietly affirmed.
The Enduring Import
Listening again, what strikes me most is not how much has changed but how much remains true. The questions these guests explored—about consciousness, freedom, responsibility, and transformation—have only deepened in their significance. The technologies of communication have evolved; the essence of communication has not.
In an era now saturated with meaningless memes, artificial intelligence, and algorithmic mediation, these early dialogues serve as gentle reminders of what it means to speak and listen from presence. They remind us that awareness itself is the most sophisticated instrument ever devised. If the Connecting the Dots archive had a unifying message, it was this: human consciousness is both the subject and the solution of every great inquiry.
A Continuum of Inquiry
In many ways, the conversations that began in offices, on campuses, in hotel rooms, in dining rooms, and that small studio on Georgia State University’s campus were the first articulation of ideas that would later take shape as the Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and the Seven Layers of Manifestation. Each guest contributed a distinct tone to a larger chord—a collective meditation on the nature of being. Their insights formed a living syllabus for the study of consciousness long before I would formalize it as academic research for my Doctoral study.
To revisit these voices now is to glimpse a constellation of thinkers, each illuminating a facet of the same truth: that we are evolving toward coherence, not chaos; toward greater wholeness, not fragmentation.
Closing Reflection
As I listen again, I am reminded that ideas, like seeds, have their own seasons. Some germinate quickly; others lie dormant until the soil of time is ready. These recordings, preserved in digital form, feel less like an archive and more like an awakening waiting to happen anew.
Those microphones for Connecting the Dots have long been silent, but the dialogues endure—quietly resonant, waiting for receptive minds to listen once more. May they inspire in others what they first inspired in me: a sense that thought itself can be sacred, that conversation can be a path to self-realization, and that the true work of connecting the dots begins within.
Listen to the updated archive:
🎧 connectingthedots.org
Suggested Practice: Listening for the Echo Within
Before engaging the archive, take a few quiet minutes to center yourself.
Sit comfortably, close the eyes, and let the breath settle into its natural rhythm.
Notice the field of awareness itself — the stillness that underlies each sound. Allow this awareness to become spacious and inclusive.
Silently recall a conversation or idea from your own life that once moved you deeply. Feel its resonance return, not as memory, but as vibration in the present.
When ready, open the archive and select one episode intuitively, without overthinking. Listen not for information but for connection — between voices, ideas, and your own unfolding understanding.
Afterward, reflect briefly in writing:
What insight or question lingered most strongly?
How does that theme appear in your life now?
What “dot” might still be waiting to connect?
Purpose: This simple practice transforms listening into meditation. It renews the spirit of Connecting the Dots — to approach dialogue not as consumption, but as communion.
—
About the Author
Dr. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a consciousness scholar, executive coach, and Certified Teacher of Transcendental Meditation® based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work—spanning the Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and the Seven Layers of Manifestation—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social-systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society. Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program. He is the Host/Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly gathering dedicated to experiencing the unifying power of silence. He writes from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul. They are the proud parents of four children. To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.