Chris Grosso
Chris Grosso serves as spiritual director at the interfaith center The Sanctuary at Shepardfields, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit land preserve that offers educational resources for personal transformation, community evolution, and environmental restoration (www.oursanctuary.org). Chris is responsible for organizing and facilitating weekly interfaith meditations and discussion groups, and organizing special events.
After years of studying various spiritual paths, Chris took his Bodhisattva vows during a Medicine Buddha ceremony in 2007, as transmitted from Venerable Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Tenzin, who received the initiation from H.H. the Dalai Lama before being appointed as Abbot of H.H.’s Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, India. Chris has since gone on to devote the majority of his personal education and practice to drawing from the various mystic branches of the world’s great wisdom traditions.
Chris is a professor with en*theos Academy as well as a featured columnist for both ORIGIN Magazine and Mantra Yoga + Health Magazine. He also writes for Huffington Post, Elephant Journal, Rebelle Society, Yoganonymous, Intent.com and more.
Chris’s main writing endeavor, however, is his work with his website The Indie Spiritualist (www.theindiespiritualist.com). Since the site’s inception in 2010, Chris has interviewed an eclectic mix of individuals from the worlds of spirituality, film, music, neuroscience, art, comedy, and more. One of the more notable individuals featured is successful singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, who is also known for writing the soundtrack to the film Magnolia, which garnered nominations for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and three Grammys.
Also featured is Chris’s interview with punk music icon, actor, author, and TV and radio show host Henry Rollins (Black Flag and Rollins Band), as well as his interview with Comedy Central Roast Master Lisa Lampanelli. The site also features interviews with some of today’s leading bands, hip hop artists, and solo performers, including Ministry, Deftones, Ian MacKaye (Fugazi and Minor Threat), Atmosphere, Aesop Rock, Kaki King, and Linkin Park. Chris’s site also presents interviews with skateboarding icons Mike Vallely and Christian Hosoi, actors Danny Trejo (Heat, Machete, Spy Kids), Demetri Martin (Taking Woodstock, Important Things with Demetri Martin), Scout Taylor-Compton (The Runaways, Rob Zombie’s Halloween I and 2), and many more.
And, of course, The Indie Spiritualist website also offers interviews with individuals from the world of spirituality and science, including Ken Wilber (author of A Brief History of Everything), Dan Millman (Author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior), Dr. Robert Thurman (author and professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at Columbia University), MC Yogi (contemporary spiritual hip hop artist), Betsy Chasse (co-creator of What the [Bleep] Do We Know!?), Father Thomas Keating (author, board member of Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute, Trappist monk), Jai Uttal (world-renowned Kirtan musician), Dr. Joe Dispenza (neuroscientist and author featured in What the [Bleep] Do We Know!?), Brother Brahmananda of Paramhansa Yogananda’s Self-Realization Fellowship, and even Peter H. Gilmore, high priest of the Church of Satan.
As a self-taught musician who plays drums, bass, and guitar, Chris has been writing, recording, and touring with independent bands since the mid-90s. Most recently, Chris has contributed his musical abilities by performing Kirtan across the country with world-renowned Yoga teacher Alanna Kaivalya. Their brand-new take on Kirtan, which blends contemporary songs with traditional Kirtan chanting, is gaining recognition and praise at a rapid rate.
In 2012, Chris and Alanna headlined Yoga Journal Conference in Estes Park, Colorado, alongside world-famous Kirtan musician Jai Uttal. Chris and Alanna travel the United States performing Kirtan for eclectic crowds in diverse settings, from Kripalu to vintage theaters, churches, Yoga studios, and more.
Chris also makes up one half of the ambient-metal band Womb of the Desert Sun, as both vocalist and bassist. Womb’s first EP was released on October 30, 2012, by The Path Less Traveled Records and was featured on iTunes “New and Noteworthy” metal page. Their follow up EP, Invocation: Our Dying Days was released in February 2013 also through The Path Less Traveled Records and is available through Amazon and over 600 other music-download websites.
Chris’s fusion of the ideas of such well-respected people from their varying fields in this forum has earned him respect among individuals from both the world of independent culture and that of spirituality including Ram Dass, Ken Wilber, Tony Hawk, Stephen & Ondrea Levine, Bernie Siegel, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach and more.
