September 2021
Ellen Emmet ~ The Awakening Body: 3-Day Online Retreat
We start at 9:00 am Pacific Time / 5:00 pm UK time / 6:00 pm Central European Time.
In this three day retreat we will explore our direct experience and let it reveal its essential reality of Awareness. Our particular focus is the body, allowing it to be our mirror and our pathway, our prayer and our altar, and ultimately the shining expression of this shared identity.
There will be time for questions and conversation each day as our inquiry deepens.
There will be a 20-30 minute break during the 3-hour sessions.
In our daily lives, the body is seldom tasted as it is. We rarely listen to its tactile and energetic language or allow it to simply unfold and blossom in its natural original intelligence.
In fact we have deeply disconnected from this level of experience and even when we turn back towards the body, we come with agendas and ideas that we project upon it, forcing the body into a new mode, only to perpetuate a felt identification with a body, that may seem improved, but in fact remains a mere projections for the separate self that seems to live in its center.
With silence as our main shrine, we will share gradually deepening guided tactile meditations along with simple postures, free movements, breathing, and visualizations. In this contemplation, resistances and chains of bodily contractions, the habits that create the illusion that our identity is limited, located and separate are revealed and free to unfold as they are: feelings and sensations that come and go in Awareness. We come to feel that our true identity is an open field of vibrating openness,limitless and ever-present.
Gently and effortlessly, in deepening waves, the body is slowly realigned with this felt understanding. It flows as a living substence with more and more ease and transparency and reflects and expresses the ever-present freedom and silence that is its invisible source.
Ganga Ma will be joining us and weaving her sacred chanting into the sessions.
About Ganga Ma: www.soulfulsilence.com
Ellen’s deepest intuition was confirmed when she met her teacher, Francis Lucille. In his presence, she recognized the eternal, limitless and universal nature of our shared reality. Over many years, her understanding deepened to touch all levels of experience. The process of aligning and stabilizing all aspects of her life to this understanding has continued to unfold since then.
Today, Ellen offers meetings and retreats in The Awakening Body, sharing a direct exploration of reality sourced in the tradition of Kashmir Shivaism and self-inquiry as transmitted through Francis Lucille and his teacher, Jean Klein. In addition, she has a private practice as a psychotherapist and facilitator of Authentic Movement. Her background of Dance Movement Therapy and Transpersonal Psychology is shaped by the non-dual understanding. Ellen lives in Oxford, England with her husband, Rupert Spira.
Sliding Scale: $60 to $105
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Ellen Emmet ~ The Awakening Body: 3-Day Online Retreat
In this three day retreat we will explore our direct experience and let it reveal its essential reality of Awareness. Our particular focus is the body, allowing it to be our mirror and our pathway, our prayer and our altar, and ultimately the shining expression of this shared identity.
With silence as our main shrine, we will share gradually deepening guided tactile meditations along with simple postures, free movements, breathing, and visualizations. In this contemplation, resistances and chains of bodily contractions, the habits that create the illusion that our identity is limited, located and separate are revealed and free to unfold as they are: feelings and sensations that come and go in Awareness. We come to feel that our true identity is an open field of vibrating openness,limitless and ever-present.
Ellen’s deepest intuition was confirmed when she met her teacher, Francis Lucille. In his presence, she recognized the eternal, limitless and universal nature of our shared reality. Ellen lives in Oxford, England with her husband, Rupert Spira.
Find out more »Silent Group Meditation (Free, No Guidance)
Mondays: 8:00am – 8:30am Pacific Time
and Wednesdays: 9:00am – 9:30am Pacific Time
Ongoing every week, with rare exceptions.
Check Full Calendar to verify dates.
Join for a group meditation – just us, without a teacher. Do your own practice silently in the company of others. There will be no talk or guidance – only a bell to start and finish. Let’s be present, together.
After half an hour of silent sitting, there will be space for a brief hello in the end, if we like.
Please be seated by the time meditation starts, so that we can begin together. You are welcome to have your camera and microphone on (unless you have a lot of background noise), so that we can feel as if we were in one space.
The zoom link remains the same for all the sessions, so you are welcome to register only once and save the link for future reference.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Silent Group Meditation (Free, No Guidance)
Mondays: 8:00am – 8:30am Pacific Time
Wednesdays : 9:00am – 9:30am Pacific Time
Ongoing every week, with rare exceptions. Check Full Calendar to verify dates.
Join for a group meditation – just us, without a teacher. Do your own practice silently in the company of others. There will be no talk or guidance – only a bell to start and finish. Let’s be present, together.
After half an hour of silent sitting, there will be space for a brief hello in the end, if we like.
Please be seated by the time meditation starts, so that we can begin together. You are welcome to have your camera and microphone on (unless you have a lot of background noise), so that we can feel as if we were in one space.
The zoom link remains the same for all the sessions, so you are welcome to register only once and save the link for future reference.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
October 2021
Swami Sarvapriyananda ~ The Yoga of the Awareness-Self
The talk will introduce the ancient tradition of Advaita Vedanta. We will take an experiential journey into the very heart of our existence and seek to discover our real self. The talk is designed around meditation techniques drawn from the Upanishads and later Advaita texts.
Swami Sarvapriyananda is a widely regarded teacher and advocate of Advaita Vedanta, and is skilled in presenting it to westerners in an easily understandable way. He is the Minister and Spiritual Leader of the Vedanta Society of New York, a Nagral Fellow for 2019-20 at Harvard Divinity School, and former assistant minister of the Vedanta Society of Southern California.
Swami joined the Ramakrishna Math and Mission in 1994 and received Sannyas in 2004.
Find out more »Swami Sarvapriyananda ~ The Yoga of the Awareness-Self
The talk will introduce the ancient tradition of Advaita Vedanta. We will take an experiential journey into the very heart of our existence and seek to discover our real self. The talk is designed around meditation techniques drawn from the Upanishads and later Advaita texts.
Swami Sarvapriyananda has been appointed as Minister and Spiritual Leader of the Vedanta Society of New York, and assumed his duties here on January 6, 2017. He is a Nagral Fellow for 2019-20 at Harvard Divinity School. Prior to this, he served as assistant minister of the Vedanta Society of Southern California for 13 months, beginning on December 3, 2015.
Swami joined the Ramakrishna Math and Mission in 1994 and received Sannyas in 2004. Before being posted to the VSSC’s Hollywood Temple, Swami served as an acharya (teacher) of the monastic probationers’ training center at Belur Math. He has served the Ramakrishna Math and Mission in various capacities including being the Vice Principal of the Deoghar Vidyapith Higher Secondary School, Principal of the Shikshana Mandira Teacher Education College at Belur Math, and the first Registrar of the Vivekananda University at Belur Math.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Silent Group Meditation (Free, No Guidance)
Mondays: 8:00am – 8:30am Pacific Time
and Wednesdays: 9:00am – 9:30am Pacific Time
Ongoing every week, with rare exceptions.
Check Full Calendar to verify dates.
Join for a group meditation – just us, without a teacher. Do your own practice silently in the company of others. There will be no talk or guidance – only a bell to start and finish. Let’s be present, together.
After half an hour of silent sitting, there will be space for a brief hello in the end, if we like.
Please be seated by the time meditation starts, so that we can begin together. You are welcome to have your camera and microphone on (unless you have a lot of background noise), so that we can feel as if we were in one space.
The zoom link remains the same for all the sessions, so you are welcome to register only once and save the link for future reference.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Silent Group Meditation (Free, No Guidance)
Mondays: 8:00am – 8:30am Pacific Time
Wednesdays : 9:00am – 9:30am Pacific Time
Ongoing every week, with rare exceptions. Check Full Calendar to verify dates.
Join for a group meditation – just us, without a teacher. Do your own practice silently in the company of others. There will be no talk or guidance – only a bell to start and finish. Let’s be present, together.
After half an hour of silent sitting, there will be space for a brief hello in the end, if we like.
Please be seated by the time meditation starts, so that we can begin together. You are welcome to have your camera and microphone on (unless you have a lot of background noise), so that we can feel as if we were in one space.
The zoom link remains the same for all the sessions, so you are welcome to register only once and save the link for future reference.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Stephan Bodian ~ Realize Your Inherent Wakefulness ~ 2-Part Online Course
Oct. 9 & 16
9:00 am – 12:00 pm, Pacific Time
Time Zone Converter
Event will be recorded and emailed
to participants after each meeting.
You're welcome to join even if you can't attend all the live sessions.
"Just remain as you are, without question or doubt. That is your natural state." ~ Ramana Maharshi
Once we have an initial recognition that our thoughts and feelings do not in fact constitute who we really are, the next step is to realize our “natural state” of inherent wakefulness, which is never lost or gained and never sullied or disturbed by the thoughts and feelings that arise. This direct recognition, beyond the mind, of our essential spiritual nature is the breakthrough awakening to which the nondual spiritual traditions point.
Yet many seekers read the books and watch the videos but never come to this clear recognition, which is traditionally transmitted, and then confirmed, by direct pointing in the presence of a teacher. This two-day workshop/retreat, on successive Saturdays, will offer meditations and pointing-out instructions to introduce you directly to your natural state—what Tibetans call the “nature of mind” and Zen calls your original face before your parents were born. Once you know who you are without question or doubt, you have experienced a major shift in identity and can’t completely revert to your old, dysfunctional way of being again.
Stephan Bodian is a teacher in the nondual wisdom tradition of Zen, Dzogchen, and Advaita and the founder and director of the annual School for Awakening, an intensive six-month program of exploration and study. Trained as a Buddhist monk for a decade, he studied Advaita for many years with Jean Klein and received Dharma transmission from Adyashanti in 2001. His books include Wake Up Now; Beyond Mindfulness; Meditation for Dummies; and Buddhism for Dummies (with Jon Landaw).
More about Stephan Bodian: www.stephanbodian.org
Sliding Scale: $50 to $90
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please Register Early if you can.
Peter Russell ~ Letting Go of Nothing
This event will be held in a shaded garden courtyard.
Bring layers for the variable Berkeley weather.
Peter Russell will be leading a session based on his new book, Letting Go of Nothing: Relax Your Mind and Discover the Wonder of Your True Nature.
The call to let go lies at the heart of the world’s spiritual traditions. Non-attachment to outcomes, surrendering desires, accepting the present, opening to a higher power, relinquishing the ego, forgiveness—they all entail letting go. But letting go is not always easy. That’s because we often think of it as getting rid of some disturbing thought or feeling. Peter Russell reframes letting go, not as another task we need to do, but as letting in and letting be, and applies this principle to letting go of judgments and grievances, unhealthy emotions and fixed beliefs, and our assumptions as to what will make us happy.
He shows how letting go is key to meditation—allowing the thinking mind to quieten so that we can experience the intrinsic peace of our natural mind, unperturbed by worry and concern. When we do, we discover the true nature of the self—the “I” at the heart of our being. Here, free from the machinations of the ego-mind, we can be more in touch with our hearts and our innate wisdom, and taste the awakening that all the great mystics and spiritual teachers have spoken of.
Peter Russell is a leading thinker on consciousness and contemporary spirituality. He is the author of a dozen books, including The Global Brain, Waking Up in Time and From Science to God. His new book, Letting Go of Nothing, was published this August.
Peter studied theoretical physics, experimental psychology, and computer science at the University of Cambridge, and meditation and Eastern Philosophy in India. And pioneered the introduction of personal growth programs to corporations in the 1980s.
His mission is to distill the essential wisdom on human consciousness found in the world’s various spiritual traditions, and to disseminate their teachings on self-liberation in contemporary and compelling ways.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »