January 2023
Adam Chacksfield ~ Living In Your Desire ~ In-Person in Berkeley, CA
How do you act and make choices when you realize there’s nothing you need to be or become? How do you claim the gift of your unique embodied life when you see that all stories of life purpose are fictions?
When we are spacious enough we can zoom out and realize the absolute freedom of nonduality, and the open space of vast possibility in which our particular lives are unfolding.
From here, we can also zoom in and explore the inspiration of our deepest desires. Let’s tune in to what lights us up and what shuts us down. Let’s embrace the sensual juiciness of our journey, and honor the movement our hearts and the truth of our experience. Inspiration effortlessly brings us all the way here, move us, and creates our lives.
You don’t need to believe the fear and shame conditioning that has you ignore your desire and instead do what you’ve been taught is “normal” or what “you should do.” You get to live inside your desire, enjoy it’s erotic vitality, and unfold freely without believing in any destination.
Adam’s teaching is an expression of nondual wisdom that also passionately embraces the whole of our embodied aliveness. Adam’s reliable open-hearted presence makes him adept at supporting people in moving through the fear and shame conditioning that so often shuts us down.
Adam facilitates retreats and workshops in North America and Europe. He coaches individuals and couples. Adam also created and teaches a four-month online course called “Erotic Embodiment & Intimacy.”
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »February 2023
Pamela Wilson ~ Letting Stillness Live and Guide the Life ~ Local IN-PERSON Berkeley Event
This event will be held in the large cozy Sanctuary space.
Pamela invites us to uncontain the field of presence, clarity and strength within by noticing the ongoing inner satsang that appears in the heart, body and mind. Bringing warmth and compassion to what is tight or troubled liberates the past from the body, allowing a rooted, clear and free flowing expansion. Life then can live itself, no role play required!
Pamela Wilson evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human. She is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. Pamela is featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »April 2023
Pamela Wilson ~ Letting Stillness Live and Guide the Life ~ Local IN-PERSON Berkeley Event
This event will be held in the large cozy Sanctuary space.
Pamela invites us to uncontain the field of presence, clarity and strength within by noticing the ongoing inner satsang that appears in the heart, body and mind. Bringing warmth and compassion to what is tight or troubled liberates the past from the body, allowing a rooted, clear and free flowing expansion. Life then can live itself, no role play required!
Pamela Wilson evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human. She is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. Pamela is featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »Manilai ~ Sound Bath ~ In-Person in Berkeley, CA
This event will be held in the large cozy Sanctuary space.
Join us in a space of connection, honoring and healing.
We will relax and re-harmonize to the sounds and vibrations of crystal singing bowls performed by Manilai. Each singing bowl is attuned to one of the 7 main chakras and helps to clear and align the chakras. You will be invited to completely relax during this one-hour full-bodied, immersive experience that invites deep healing and restorative processes.
“Sounds permeate our systems, resonating with our essence, so that inner dissonance seems almost immediately to be transformed into harmony.”- Dr. Mitchell Gaynor
Bring what you like for your comfort such as a foam or yoga mat, pillows and blankets.
Write up about me:
I went through a period of deep emotional release and healing. Profound shifts happened in my experience of life when I moved from living from my head to my heart. Now I connect to Heart's Truth to guide my way, letting go of the mind's attachment to the illusions of control, security and life story. So much freed when I brought my attention to inner joy and loosened the seeking of happiness outside of myself. I am grateful for this beautiful journey of heart opening and experiencing the unfolding of love all around and through me.
My joy of singing bowl sound baths started several years ago and I felt an immediate affinity for their beautiful vibration and sound. Sound baths have been very healing and restorative for me and I love sharing this with others.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »Amoda Maa ~ Knowing Our Essential Nature as Open Awareness ~ In-Person in Berkeley, CA
Amoda Maa offers a profound invitation to all those who wish to embody the truth of awakened consciousness in the midst of everyday life. Her meetings include silent or guided meditation, discourse, and an opportunity to ask questions from the innermost. Speaking with clarity and grace, she invites an open-hearted honesty to the exploration of what it means to recognize and live from our essential nature as open awareness.
Amoda’s teachings are free from any ideology and are not affiliated with any lineage or tradition, and yet the luminous truth is the same nondual understanding at the core of of many spiritual traditions. Arising from her own direct experience and expressed in a contemporary language, these teachings are relevant and accessible to all people from all backgrounds and cultures. She is known for her authenticity, depth, and unique expression of “masculine” clear-pointed insight and “feminine” unconditional acceptance.
Since 2016, she has been living in the US, and today her teachings are followed by a growing global community. She has been a speaker and guest teacher at a variety of conferences, featured in several magazines, interviewed for numerous broadcasts and podcasts, and is the author of several books including Embodied Enlightenment and Falling Open in a World Falling Apart. Her life and work are dedicated to supporting an "inner transformation of consciousness” and envisioning a new world of peace and enlightened living.
More info on Amoda, her teachings, and events, including Bay Area daylong gathering on April 22nd at www.amodamaa.com/events
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
No pre-registration.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Peter Russell ~ Nonduality and the Science of Consciousness ~ In-Person in Berkeley, CA
This event will be held in the large cozy Sanctuary space.
The spiritual teaching of nonduality, which stems from the Indian philosophy of advaita, teaches that consciousness is the primary reality, the fundamental essence of the cosmos. On the other hand, the current scientific worldview holds that the physical world is primary, and that consciousness somehow, in ways that we do not yet understand, emerges from it. Both views have their challenges. If consciousness is primary, why do we not see it in all things? Conversely if the physical world is primary, how does consciousness arise from something as insentient matter?
Peter Russell, M.A., D.C.S.
Peter Russell is a leading thinker on consciousness and contemporary spirituality, he coined the term "global brain" with his 1980s’ bestseller of the same name in which he predicted the Internet and the impact it would have on humanity. Other books include Waking Up in Time, From Science to God, and his most recent, Letting Go of Nothing.
Suggested Donation: $15 to $25
No pre-registration.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
May 2023
Marlies Myoku Cocheret ~ A Day of Silence, Movement and Connection ~ In-Person Daylong in Berkeley
Join the Silent Revolution!
A wave of awakening is washing over the earth. This is no coincidence. It is the dire nature of our circumstances that guides us to walk the narrow path because truly there is no alternative. The most authentic and deepest revolution is an inside job.
Yes, Mother-Lover-Earth is hurting. Humanity and the animal kingdom are hurting. In the face of this bleak picture, it is natural to want to do something. But what?
First we must ask, what is the root of this human chaos that is destroying not only Mother Earth but also our connection with our True Nature?
When we take our thought patterns about ourselves and the world to be real, and struggle against this false reality, we create suffering and chaos ensues. It doesn’t work. So what can we do?
We can join the Silent Revolution and go inward, slow down, be still and listen.
It is in this way that we can hear our body’s language and find our way back through our precious form as a portal to wholeness, radiance and YOU!
Together we can learn to rest as silence and meet our humanity compassionately with all its struggle, resistance and beauty. Then True Reality, spacious Silent Being, appears which is You! Live as that. Through strong bonds of connection and affection we create a powerful field which washes over the entire Earth and helps all to awaken. In this way, we can get through anything.
This is what is needed, and the time is NOW!
Come and join the wave of silence waking up to Herself everywhere.
Come and join the Silent Revolution!
Marlies Myoku Cocheret has devoted her life to the Beloved. She brings a potent invitation into the deep Silence that we are. The kindness of her gentle and direct teaching guides us home like a lighthouse. Marlies has been offering satsang and retreat since 2000 when Adyashanti asked her to teach.
Marlies is interviewed in the book Awakened Relating. A Guide To Embodying Undivided Love in Intimate Relationships by Lynn Marie Lumiere, and in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom by R.M. Robinson.
“With Adya, the bottom fell out. I deeply knew I am not this body, mind, thought, psyche, and I am also all these things as well. There was no in and/or out. All is One.”
Sliding Scale: $60 to $120
Pre-Register here or...
Pay at Door when you arrive.
Pre-registration online closed at 12 noon, Saturday May 13th (the day before event)
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Lunch Break: There are places close by to go out for lunch, or you may bring your own lunch, though there is no refrigerator access. There's a nice small yard with lawn, as well as some indoor space for eating at the premises.
NOTE: The venue is a kosher-style facility, so no pork or shellfish, and no meat mixed with dairy on premises.
August 2023
Manilai ~ Sound Bath ~ In-Person in Berkeley, CA
Join us in a space of connection, honoring and healing.
We will relax and re-harmonize to the sounds and vibrations of crystal singing bowls performed by Manilai. Each singing bowl is attuned to one of the 7 main chakras and helps to clear and align the chakras. You will be invited to completely relax during this one-hour full-bodied, immersive experience that invites deep healing and restorative processes.
“Sounds permeate our systems, resonating with our essence, so that inner dissonance seems almost immediately to be transformed into harmony.”- Dr. Mitchell Gaynor
Bring what you like for your comfort such as a foam or yoga mat, pillows and blankets.
Write up about me:
I went through a period of deep emotional release and healing. Profound shifts happened in my experience of life when I moved from living from my head to my heart. Now I connect to Heart's Truth to guide my way, letting go of the mind's attachment to the illusions of control, security and life story. So much freed when I brought my attention to inner joy and loosened the seeking of happiness outside of myself. I am grateful for this beautiful journey of heart opening and experiencing the unfolding of love all around and through me.
My joy of singing bowl sound baths started several years ago and I felt an immediate affinity for their beautiful vibration and sound. Sound baths have been very healing and restorative for me and I love sharing this with others.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »October 2023
Rupert Spira ~ The Essence of Non-Duality – In-Person & LIVESTREAM Daylong
Registration is now closed for in-person attendance to this event.
Livestream Sliding Scale: $40 to $60 per person.
Link to access recording will be emailed to those registered for Livestream & Recording Access
Since the in-person event is SOLD OUT, we are offering Livestream access to make it available to more people. This “registration” can also be used for people who wish to receive access to the video afterwards.
“Meditation is what we are, not what we do; the separate self is what we do, not what we are.”
In the last few years Rupert Spira has become one of the most respected and sought-after teachers of non-dual wisdom, known for his crystal clear use of language, laser-like intellect, skillful guided inquiries, and powerfully direct pointing to aware presence—all delivered with warmth, wit and an unmatched and distinctive eloquence.
In his meetings, Rupert explores the perennial, non-dual understanding that lies at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mystical Christianity, Sufism, Zen etc., and which is also the direct, ever-present reality of our own experience. This is a contemporary, experiential approach involving silent meditation, guided meditation and conversation, and requires no affiliation to any particular religious or spiritual tradition. All that is required is an interest in the essential nature of experience, and in the longing for love, peace and happiness around which most of our lives revolve.
After thirty years of intense seeking, Rupert met his primary teacher Francis Lucille, who introduced him to the direct way taught by his own teacher, Jean Klein. He is the author of several books, including his latest, You are the Happiness You Seek.
www.non-duality.rupertspira.com
Registration is now closed for in-person attendance to this event
Link to access recording will be emailed to those registered for Livestream & Recording Access
Since the in-person event is SOLD OUT, we are offering Livestream access to make it available to more people. This “registration” can also be used for people who wish to receive access to the video afterwards.
Lunch Break: There are places close by to go out for lunch, or you may bring your own lunch, though there is no refrigerator access. There's a nice small yard with lawn, and limited indoor space for eating at the premises.
NOTE: The venue is a kosher-style facility, so no pork or shellfish, and no meat mixed with dairy on premises.
PARKING: There is some limited street parking in the neighborhood, free and without time limit on weekends. There is also parking a few blocks away at the east parking lot of the Ashby Bart station: www.bart.gov/stations/ashb/map
You may also find paid parking just a few blocks away at Alta Bates Parking Garage: Enter on Colby between Ashby and Webster St.
Nearby parking fills up quickly. Plan accordingly.
Shakti Caterina Maggi ~ Embodied non duality ~ In-Person in Berkeley, CA & LIVESTREAM
A direct and compassionate immersion into the field of non duality, an invitation to the conscious embodiment of our true nature. Our daily life itself can then be actively experienced as our most important spiritual practice.
The sharing will be followed by a session of Q&A to integrate the message.
Shakti Caterina Maggi is a spiritual guide who has, since 2003, been sharing a message of non-separation and awakening to our true Self. Her contemporary and heart-centered approach to Advaita and non-dual Tantra has supported thousands of seekers who meet her in retreats and seminars all over the world.
www.shakticaterinamaggi.com
Open Circle is hosting a series of events with Shakti in various locations:
See Shakti's California Tour Page for details.
Berkeley, CA satsangs: Oct. 26th & 31st and Nov. 2nd, 7th & 8th (7-9 pm)
Mount Shasta, CA satsangs: Oct. 27th (7-9 pm) & 28th (3-5 pm)
Sebastopol, CA satsang: Oct. 29th (2-4 pm)
Pre-Retreat satsang, San Rafael, CA: Nov. 3rd (7-9 pm)
(Included when you register for the Retreat and can be attended separately, open to all)
Weekend RETREAT in Berkeley, CA: Nov. 4th & 5th
Suggested donation for this evening In-Person: $10 to $30
No pre-registration. Pay at door when you arrive.
If you have symptoms of a viral infection, or have had a recent
Covid exposure or positive test, please stay home out of consideration for others.
For Nov. 2nd, 7th & 8th, Join us IN-PERSON in Berkeley or by LIVESTREAM...
Link to access recording will be emailed within a week after event,
to those registered for Livestream & Recording Access