September 2019
Michael Damian ~ Embracing the Desire for Happiness
"Happiness is not in things. Happiness is in the wholeness of things."
Life is not a meaningless series of experiences happening to no one. For each of us, it feels vitally important that we find real love and happiness, by understanding who we are on both the spiritual and human levels. From the start, this requires that we fully embrace our desire for happiness.
It is inevitable that we will grasp at the wrong things, but as we become established in deep observing, our desires are purified and transformed. Instead of harboring an anxious desire to receive love from outside, we become that very love, in expression.
As we intelligently work with desire, we are also invited to abandon the mistaken quest to lose our sense of self. The real self is conscious presence, and we cannot lose what is infinitely ours. Observing takes us all the way from the most deluded sense of self, and its misguided desires, to the subtle wisdom of consciousness.
From inner listening, the real self arises as direct knowing, deep love and radiant energy. Live here long enough and you become a vital and empowered being, capable of enjoying life in all its forms and seasons.
Michael Damian shares a clear vision of awakening and psychological integration. Arising from a powerful spiritual awakening in 2006, and his practice as a depth psychologist, Michael’s teachings point to the simplicity of knowing our real nature while also mastering our psychology. Michael’s approach is based, in part, on work with A Course in Miracles and his main teacher Barry Long. He is the author of The Art of Freedom: A Guide to Awakening.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
October 2019
Shakti Caterina Maggi ~ Awakening in Daily Living
Shakti is a teacher very well known in Europe and her native Italy, who offers a contemporary and accessible vision of true awakening that is profoundly in tune with Advaita and nondual Tantric traditions.
The spiritual journey inevitably leads to the confrontation between our "spiritual life" and our "material life", discovering how and where we truly embody the truth of our heart. Realizing the emptiness of our true nature is just the starting point of an integration process that can take several years and involve all aspects of our lives, and leads us to several moments of crisis in which old egoic patterns of behavior that are still based on the separative mind emerge to be dissolved by the light of Awareness.
Shakti has spent many years deepening this integration process. With wisdom, humor, and heartfelt connection, she shares a message of discovering our divinity at the very core of our humanity. Shakti has been sharing this message of non-separation since 2003 with many people around the world, especially in Italy and in Europe, where she holds satsangs and retreats.
"Peace is not a destination, but a starting point. Find that Peace that rests behind anything and anybody and bring it into your world. Every human being looks for Peace in their inner or outer reality. In this call for clarity, what we are looking for is what our true nature actually is.
“We are used to imagining that the dissolving of inner and outer conflicts comes as the result of some action, whereas it is only when we move from Peace that those actions will bring the end of any conflict. Moving and living from Peace is recognizing what we are, and integrating it in our everyday life.
“Awakening to your true nature means to wake up to your true essence that lies behind any conflict of daily living. Thoughts and feelings are not an obstacle to this recognition, but the direct expression of how we know or ignore ourselves. Once we find that silence that rests behind manifestation, the ego will come back, out of habit. If we can recognize its presence, not as a disturbance but as an opportunity to integrate the message, our everyday life becomes our true spiritual journey. The Peace of our Being becomes the world we see and live in.”
Suggested donation $15 - $25
No one turned away for lack of funds
Gail Brenner ~ Awakening in the Mind, Body and Heart
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT HAS BEEN MOVED FROM SAN RAFAEL TO BERKELEY DUE TO LACK OF POWER IN MARIN COUNTY.
The potential for all of us is to be open, present, and available, to live from inner intelligence, to be in harmony with life. In fact, this is our natural state. But how do we find this open awareness in our ordinary day-to-day lives, especially when life gets confusing and difficult?
In our sacred time together, we’ll use guided meditations, restful silences, and focused heartfelt conversation to skillfully unravel the conditioned identities that make you feel separate.
We’ll practice turning inward toward what you’re experiencing so you can know where your attention is going that’s causing personal suffering. We’ll slow things down so you can be fully present with every thought, feeling, and physical sensation that appears. You’ll learn compassionate skills to help you in challenging moments.
We respect the humanity of your stories, and go beyond them to relax into the openness beyond all stories—undisturbed by any problem or emotion. As you meet the knots of your suffering with the deepest acceptance, they begin to soften, and here you find yourself—in the simple freshness of the moment that is open, peaceful, and infinitely loving.
Gail Brenner, Ph.D. is an eternal student of happiness who blends her experience as a psychologist with a loving presence that invites people into harmony with all of life. She is gifted at meeting our humanness with nondual understanding in ways that are practical and loving. Gail has worked with clients and groups for over 20 years, bringing laser-like clarity to the confusion of common problems, such as reactive emotions, compulsive behaviors, feelings of personal inadequacy, and relationship struggles. She is the author of several books, including The End of Self-Help and her latest, Suffering is Optional.
“Here's some very good news: freedom from unhappiness is possible, and nothing needs to change. You don't need to change your thoughts, process your feelings, learn to relax, or become a better person. The invitation is simply to see things clearly. See clearly through to the essence of what makes you unhappy, and you'll realize that, at the core of your being, there's no conflict, resistance, or separation. You now know peace deeper than you could ever imagine. Shine a laser on every experience that makes you suffer, and you'll always find your true nature, pure being that just is."
Suggested Donation: $15-$25 per person
Find out more »November 2019
Pamela Wilson ~ Life Living Itself
Pamela Wilson is a Bay Area treasure who has been sharing satsang for twenty years around the world, honoring the sage within everyone, and the absolute oneness of All That Is. Her own teachers included Lester Levinson (The Sedona Method), Robert Adams and Neelam. She 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.
Pamela 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. And she speaks the truth of non-duality, that the universe is one undivided whole. Featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, Pamela is at her best in heart-felt dialogue, so please come and bring your questions!
“Here we are, benevolent rooted space wearing a remarkably sensitive instrument called the body. Most sages report the body-mind insists on being included and permeated by presence, so it too, can know and live its naturalness. The body is the five elements, already free with no history, though it has born witness to all. As compassion we will be instantly aware of any suffering and answer its call; as stillness we will be aware of remaining restlessness. To be with what is in the moment, this is our function and is at the heart of all longing.”
Paul Hedderman ~ Beyond “Selfing”
Paul’s unpretentious, humorous and energetic style of street-level non-duality is honed by his years of involvement with 12-step programs and the recovery community, as well as his background in Zen, Advaita and A Course in Miracles. In colorful and direct language, he points to the many ways we reinforce what he calls “selfing”, urging his listeners to honestly consider the facts of their daily experience, and look beyond the pull of the past and future, and the self-reinforcing self-importance of ego-identity. His direct, uncompromising pointing doesn’t provide a refuge for entrenched conditioning and the sense of separateness, no matter how convincing that experience may be. Paul is the author of The Escape to Everywhere and his latest, On Having Never Left, and the subject of the DVD Traveling Lighter.
"We are saddled with the proscribed way of looking called self-centeredness. Everything is perceived as to how it pertains to me. The thing to do is to turn the light on it to see that all there is, is subject; there is no object called me as a subject. There's just subjectivity. That's the truth. Then enlightenment and all these goals become non-goals, because you realize there is nothing to seek.”
Suggested Donation $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Find out more »December 2019
Richard Miller ~ Resting as Inherent Joy
Why is it that some people flourish through seemingly insurmountable challenges while others struggle with even the smallest of life's difficulties? Is it possible to experience resilient joy and well-being during even our most challenging of times?
Come experience the healing and revitalizing effects of a special iRest Yoga Nidra meditation that is designed to help you recognize, reconnect with, nourish and embody your capacity to experience indestructible joy and well-being as innately present, no matter your circumstances, so that you can ease your way through this holiday season and beyond!
Richard’s teachings are based upon a lifetime of inquiry into the nature of freedom. Following a series of awakenings, all sense of separation fell away while working with his spiritual mentor, Jean Klein. Richard experiences this awakening as always fresh and alive, yet forever opening to itself.
Richard Miller, spiritual teacher, yogic scholar, clinical psychologist, author, and researcher, is the founder and chairman of the iRest Institute, co-founder of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, and a founding president of the Institute for Spirituality and Psychology.
Author of iRest Meditation: Restorative Practices for Health, Healing and Well Being and The iRest Program for Healing PTSD, Richard serves as a consultant researching the meditation protocol he’s developed—iRest Yoga Nidra— studying its efficacy on health, healing and well-being with diverse populations including active-duty soldiers, veterans, survivors of human trafficking, youth, seniors, the homeless and the incarcerated, with issues including sleep disorders, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, pain, and chemical dependency. Richard leads trainings and retreats internationally.
Suggested Donation $15-$25
Find out more »February 2020
John Prendergast ~ The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence
The great human quest is to discover who we really are—a discovery that changes our lives and the lives of those around us. With The Deep Heart, John Prendergast invites you on a pilgrimage within, using the heart as a portal to your deepest psychological and spiritual nature. The Deep Heart is John’s term for the subtle center of emotional and energetic sensitivity, relational intimacy, profound inner knowing, and wholeness found within our hearts.
In this experiential guide, John offers precise and potent meditative inquiries to help you open your heart, see through your core limiting beliefs, and discover the true nature of your being. He brings a depth of experience, insight, warmth, and compassion to his teaching work, and is especially skillful in guided meditative inquiries and one-on-one dialogues.
John J. Prendergast is a spiritual teacher, psychotherapist and retired adjunct professor of psychology at CIIS, known for his pioneering work in integrating nondual wisdom and psychotherapy. A long-time student of both Jean Klein and Adyashanti, he was asked to share the dharma by Dorothy Hunt. He is the author of the forthcoming The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence, as well as In Touch: How to Tune in to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself.
Suggested Donation: $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Pamela Wilson ~ The Intelligence of the Heart
Pamela Wilson is a Bay Area treasure who has been sharing satsang for twenty years around the world, honoring the sage within everyone, and the absolute oneness of All That Is. Her own teachers included Lester Levinson (The Sedona Method), Robert Adams and Neelam. She 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.
Pamela 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. And she speaks the truth of non-duality, that the universe is one undivided whole. Featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, Pamela is at her best in heart-felt dialogue, so please come and bring your questions!
“Here we are, benevolent rooted space wearing a remarkably sensitive instrument called the body. Most sages report the body-mind insists on being included and permeated by presence, so it too, can know and live its naturalness. The body is the five elements, already free with no history, though it has born witness to all. As compassion we will be instantly aware of any suffering and answer its call; as stillness we will be aware of remaining restlessness. To be with what is in the moment, this is our function and is at the heart of all longing.”
Suggested Donation: $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
March 2020
Shakti Caterina Maggi ~ The Way of Compassion: How Non-Duality Leads us to be in Peace
True compassion leads to a profound peace with the conflict that we still have with ourselves and the world. It is the blossoming of our non-dual nature into the human form. The satsang will unfold though questions and answers to explore this topic.
Shakti Caterina Maggi has been sharing a message of awakening to our true nature as One Consciousness since 2003. Her approach to Self-Realization is very contemporary and accessible, and is profoundly in tune with Advaita and the non-dual Tantric traditions. She reveals the real possibility of seeing what we truly are, and embodying it in our everyday lives with clarity, wisdom, and humor.
She was recently asked to contribute to the anthology On the Mystery of Being: Contemporary Insights into the Convergence of Science and Spirituality edited by Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo, the founders of the Science and Non-Duality (SAND) Conference. She teaches in Europe, Canada and the USA, offering satsang, seminars and retreats.
“The true Heart is the space in which we can deeply meet ourselves and the entire world. The way to the Heart is an embodied Consciousness, in which we are divinely human.”
Suggested Donation: $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
CANCELLED!!! Gail Brenner ~ Surrender, Devotion, and Trust in the Spiritual Life
Due to an abundance of caution over the increasing spread of the corona virus (COV-19), we have cancelled this event and all other in-person events for the month of March.
We do want to remind you that we do have Online Events on Sunday mornings as well as longer online courses and retreats. These are found on the ONLINE EVENTS page on our website.. And if Sunday morning is not a convenient time to participate, you will be sent a recording after the event if you register, allowing you to watch at any time that is convenient to you. However, to get the recording, you would need to register before the event.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. We do feel a responsibility to our teachers and our community (both the Open Circle community and the broader community) to do our part to keep everyone safe.
Love always,
The Open Circle Team