Polyglot and polymath, traditionally published author, intrepid adventurer, versatile musician, avid athlete, amateur astronomer, multi-media artist, TV host, passionate tango dancer, Kameel Nasr is a true Renaissance man. Born in Lebanon of displaced Palestinian parents, Nasr spent his formative years in 1960s San Francisco. Before he was seventeen, he committed to find the meaning of life. He was friendless, fat, and dyslexic, and he admits his path was influenced by a longing to turn his life around. He searched gurus and sages, began meditation—which was marginal at the time—and went from one spiritual group to another searching for enlightenment. His brother had joined an English sect called the Process as they were traveling through the United States.

The Process moved back to Europe, and Nasr traveled to Rome and became initiated into the group. He spent seven years in different Process chapters, Rome, Paris, London, Chicago, Boston, Miami, New York. They taught telepathy, self-awareness, and higher states of consciousness, but Nasr became skeptical of altered consciousness and concluded it was not the avenue to enlightenment. Dissatisfied with the Process, he tried to imitate the Buddha and became a hermit in the New Mexico wilderness, but that, too, brought no enlightenment, only discomfort. 

Nasr tried to live among the poor like St. Francis, taking a room in a Chicago skid row flop house, but he could not help anyone there. He thought he should become a monk, but after short stays in diverse orders, he could not commit to another organization.

After graduate school, Nasr hopped on his bicycle and made an overland pilgrimage to India, where he was sure to find realization. From the beginning of his search for life’s meaning, he had met many Indian gurus and wise men who had come to America spreading their teaching. He biked through North America, Europe, and the Middle East where he confronted his refugee past and his present privilege. (He would return to work as a journalist and write a book about the conflict). When he arrived in India, land of spirituality, he saw only a very earthy life. He began questioning the spiritual path itself. 

 Nasr continued exploring, through Eastern and Western spirituality as well as science for life’s meaning. In his Boston home, Nasr is active in civic and cultural life, including serving at the Museum of Science and the Boston Lyric Opera. He also has a cottage on the island of Sardinia. At the time of the Gulf War, a switch goes off in his head when he was sitting in his garden in Sardinia, an idyllic setting, but he realized that he cannot achieve anything while others around the world suffer. Enlightenment is a group activity, and political and social activism for the climate and justice is as spiritual as it gets. 

Finally, Nasr created the Curiosity Foundation to deal with climate change and promote the arts. All proceeds from his books go to the foundation, which awards grants to environmental startups and arts organizations. Nasr still bicycles the world and is currently studying a method of extracting CO2 out of the atmosphere, working with researchers from MIT and Harvard.