Past Events › Online Event

During this regular monthly satsang, Marlies gently guides us to rest in the silence of our being, our secret sacred sanctuary. The more we rest as the silence that we are, the more we can stand firmly as presence in the turbulence of these times.

In this process of falling into the arms of silence, we meet along the way our own inner turbulence.

We invite you to join us to be strongly rooted in your nature in the midst of the blizzard.

There will be an opportunity to share, so please bring your experience, presence and questions to share with the group.

Marlies Myoku Cocheret de la Morinière 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. She lives in Santa Cruz, California and works internationally as a psychologist, Hakomi therapist and Tantric Educator.

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.”

www.marliescocheret.com

Suggested donation: $15 to $25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.

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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

The event will run from 9:00 am until 3:00 pm, including a 2-hour lunch break.

Can we actually know who or what anything is by thinking about it, labeling it, having an opinion about it? Does the word rose deliver its fragrance, or the thought of water quench our thirst? Are we expecting Truth to deliver an intellectual answer to our seeking? What might we discover when we open the door to not knowing? Conception is not perception. We experience life more intimately, lovingly, and profoundly when we cease imagining our thoughts –even the most “spiritual” or “righteous” ones—are truth.

Conventional knowledge is needed to function, of course, but we can so easily be trapped by our conditioned thoughts, opinions, beliefs.  We live in a virtual world of our own creation depending on our interpretations of reality. We do not need to be at war with thought to begin to see that thinking that we “know” continually shuts the door on open perception and deep listening. This is as true in relationships as in the spiritual search. What if we approached more moments with “don’t know” mind, “beginners mind,” realizing that thinking does not See?

In this Sunday satsang and daylong retreat the following Saturday, we will explore experientially and meditatively what it feels like to approach life, emotions, and particularly our deepest spiritual longings, from present moment awareness. This Presence moves as openness in the mind, heart, and body. The Truth we seek reveals Itself to itself and not to the idea of a separate “me.” A mind open to not knowing is an awakened mind, open to a spontaneous, authentic and compassionate response to the moment.

Dorothy Hunt serves as Spiritual Director of Moon Mountain Sangha, teaching at the request of Adyashanti.  She is the founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy and practiced psychotherapy from 1967 to 2020. She is the author of Leaves from Moon Mountain, Only This!, and Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness.

Dorothy has a long and deep connection to the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and the path of Self-Inquiry, as well as the nondual teachings of Zen, Advaita and the Christian mystics.  In meeting Adyashanti, she was invited beyond identification with either the absolute or relative, finding freedom in what is awake in each of us regardless of the changing faces of experience. Dorothy offers satsang, retreats, and private meetings in the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere by invitation.

www.dorothyhunt.org

Sliding Scale: $40 to $80
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please register early if you can.

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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

Do you long to continuously experience the freedom and happiness of pure awareness clearly and obviously? Are you frustrated that old patterns, emotional wounds, trauma or anxiety run your life and cloud over a fundamental well-being you know is possible? As it turns out, ordinary physical space is already free and at peace with all of the qualities of pure awareness. Using Heart Fluency's uncomplicated map we can directly sense and explore space in and around our bodies providing an accessible and comprehensive portal to awakening, non-dual truth and emotional healing.

Heart Fluency® founder Bruce Pardoe will lead this 3 hour experiential journey with group exercises, Q&A and guided meditations to directly feel your awakened nature. With Heart Flueny's 3 step practice you will also learn to utilize an embodied balance that harnesses the ever present, unlimited capacities of space to allow emotional wounds, traumas and afflictive patterns to transform into your deepest gifts.

Bio:
For more than 40 years Bruce Pardoe has been navigating and facilitating the path of inner healing and non-dual wisdom. Bruce's journey through the fires of his own complex trauma led him to develop the radically accessible and gentle Heart Fluency® method for healing emotional wounds and opening to non-dual well-being and happiness. Heart Fluency combines neuroscience and the unconditional nourishment of pure awareness in a highly accessible, heart-centered approach.

After spending over two years on silent retreat Bruce became a meditation teacher in the Vipassana tradition of Buddhism. He has completed Spirit Rock Meditation Center's 2 year Dharma Leader training and has studied extensively in Asia in the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and Advaita. Bruce has also trained in Polyvagal Theory, Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement and Hakomi's body-centered psychotherapy. Since 2007 Bruce has shared Heart Fluency trainings and workshops with hundreds of conscious individuals, therapists and healers on 4 continents.

www.heartfluency.com

Suggested donation: $15 to $35
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.

REGISTER

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

Three-Part Retreat
May 28, 29 & 30
7:30 – 9:30 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.

The true quest of enlightenment is to expand beyond the self, and the transcendent experience, to live an awakened life by fully integrating the spiritual and the physical worlds for the next level of human evolution and environmental wellbeing.

And in fact, our awakening is not complete without this integration.

Awakening the “self” is not enough 

What truly matters is how we integrate the awakening in our daily lives ~ what we do with the awakening; where and how we live with the awakening.

Our awakening must be fully integrated and sustainable in all aspects of our lives.
It’s about living our awakening globally, not just personally.

There are two traps committed spiritual seekers can fall into 

The first is to focus only on the transcendent experience; believing that this will take you all the way. And that sitting in pure being is the end game. There is a sense of removal; of not being fully immersed in the world; not facing and moving through and with the shadow; the grit and the ordinariness of life. Isira calls this “spiritual escapism.”

The second is “spiritual self centredness” to focus only on ‘self’ and forgetting that your awakening is intrinsically connected to everything around you - your environment, your relationships, and the cosmos. We do not awaken in isolation.

In this 3 day retreat

In this 3 day retreat Isira will share what it takes to not just be spiritual but to live spiritual ~ to integrate and fully live a sustainable and an awakened life.

You will:

• Discover how to integrate the spiritual and physical worlds with “The Four Pillars.” These are the foundations of holistic enlightenment, an awakened society and an awakened world.
• Understand how to move with, and through, the personal and collective (global) shadow, rather than bypass it.
• Be guided into transformative meditations that you can use again and again.
• Have your deepest questions answered.

This will support you to expand and embrace holistic enlightenment ~ to live awakening - emotionally and psychologically -  in your relationships, our community and our environment.

About Isira
Isira (pronounced "I-sai-ra") is a wisdom keeper and spiritual leader of Australian Indigenous heritage who has been ordained by His Holiness Dalai Lama. Embodying wisdom from the teachings from her ancestors, eastern initiations, and the many challenges of her life experience; Isira brings rare clarity and unconditional love, to the challenges we face.

Isira is an author, teacher and speaker bringing the power of consciousness to people around the world. She offers a way to respond, realign ourselves and move forward to a new more empowered life. In the words of many - she is a truly transformative presence.

“I am Universal. I am not of one religion, one lineage, one race or one country. My lineage is consciousness. My religion is love. And the world is my sacred home.” ~ Isira

Watch an hour-long conversation between Isira and Open Circle's Sara.

www.isira.com

Sliding Scale: $50 to $80
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please Register Early if you can.

REGISTER

A space where we can gather together and BE exactly as we are

A space where the full spectrum of your human experience is invited

Calm, nervous, open, closed,

ALL is welcome here.

It's in this gentle embrace that everything can start to unravel. It's in this open space that we can begin to unwind the strategies that no longer serve us. This is the space that early mis-attunement failed to foster, the space where love blooms and new life can emerge. This is the space where all that quivers and shakes can come to rest, and where all that contorts can untwist into greater alignment.

Through gentle exploration and somatic awareness you can cultivate a new way of being with your most challenging patterns. No longer a victim of the push and pull of inner disturbance, you can step forward with greater confidence, knowing that whatever comes your way, you embody the resilience and the capacity to meet and integrate it.

You can expect a deeply held space where you’ll be invited to slow down, tune in, and track your present-moment experience. As you awaken and refine a more subtle way of Being and Being With, you can slowly but surely become the space – the container and the field – where healing takes place.

Bio:
The first leg of Georgia Simone’s path exposed her to the teachings of Advaita Vedanta, which provided her with the foundation she needed to dis-identify from pain and suffering. However, despite a growing freedom, a significant bypass took place, as her orientation towards transcendence reinforced her deep disconnection from Life. Upon seeing this, her focus became addressing the unresolved trauma that had woven its way into every fibre of her being.

After many years of wading through this marshland of conditioning, she now shares her discoveries with others. She believes that the spiritual path is as much about arriving here fully - as an embodied human being - as it is about dissolving into the infinite source that makes this life possible. How can we die to the absolute, while deeply embracing our relative human experience? This Living inquiry is her Life’s prayer.

www.georgiasimone.com

Suggested donation: $15 to $25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.

REGISTER

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

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-minute break during the 3-hour sessions.

Ganga Ma will be joining us and weaving her sacred chanting into the sessions.
About Ganga Ma: www.soulfulsilence.com

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.

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.

www.ellenemmet.com

Sliding Scale: $50 to $90
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please register early if you can.

REGISTER

The event will be recorded and emailed to participants.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter

Due to early developmental trauma, ancestral trauma and our cultural context at large, there is a prevailing unconscious nervous system habit of using spirituality and particularly the non-dual orientations to hide, bypass or otherwise disassociate from the intelligence of your core human needs and desires.  As if your needs and desires are problems to be ashamed of; to fix or get rid of on your way to spiritual realization.

This is not a sustainable, humane or truly integrative path. We long for the tangible felt sense of our wholeness. We long to passionately embody all that is present within our very human, holy and messy majesty of being alive. It is time that we compassionately discover how to allow everything to be lived within the intimate embrace of the Heart.

In this introductory session we will melt below our habit patterns of the default nervous system and connect directly with this core intelligence. Discovering our own intimate, ever fresh, self- healing, oxytocin replenishing, cell-renewing inspired embodiment practice.

Utilizing conscious breath, sound vibration, subtle intrinsic movement, embryological anatomy and provocative inquiry we enter into the inner alchemy that allows a dissolve of any out dated structures that may be obstructing our path. A psycho-spiritual somatic reorganization and higher order of self-regulation arises as our cells surrender into the all-pervasive holding ground of nature that is always present, when we are seated in the Core.

We will re-emerge renewed, resourced and ready to re-engage our senses such that they become thresholds where the divine, the natural world, our culture and the mystery of being human coalesce as the dynamic dance of Life.

Bio
Within a field of unconditionally loving presence, Ajaya facilitates a unique discovery process called, Core Embodiment ®. An integrated system of embodiment practices, principles and perceptual orientations to awaken and align with the power of your human potential. She is a Biodynamic Craniosacral Integration Teacher, NARM Practitioner, Authorized Continuum Teacher, gifted healer, writer and creative catalyst in the field of embodied awakening and trauma resolution for the last 26 years. All of her programs are grounded in science, expanded through devotional practice and made real through direct experience.

“The beauty of any true transformational path is that it will involve pattern interrupting the normal way in which you breathe and thus your unconscious identity. Taking you home to the innocence of your origins and the birthright of your Biological Breath – a systemic breath that unifies your body, mind and heart. You awaken as a whole body, mind, and heart breathing, reclaiming ALL that you are.”
~ Ajaya Sommers

www.ajayasommers.com

Suggested donation: $15 to $35
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.

REGISTER

The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
You're welcome to join, even if you can't attend the live session.
Time Zone Converter

During this series of facilitated Community Workshops, we will:

• Meet within the sweet context of what brought us together: our shared Love of Truth
• Offer each other the gift of open-hearted listening and compassionate witnessing
• Inquire into our experience through simple, playful, yet powerful facilitated exercises
• Share our experience and be truly heard by a welcoming, open-hearted community
• Get to know our fellow members of the Open Circle community

The sessions will consist of:

• Meeting in pairs and small groups, as well as sharing in the large group
• Facilitated interactions, as well as free-flowing conversations
• Time for contact information exchange (for those who would like that), and learning more about each other

There may also be an opportunity to present any heart-based initiative you are engaged in - tell us about your work, project, art, hobby, etc. that flows from your heart. Please let Sara know in advance you'd like to present, so a 5-10 minutes slot will be reserved for you: sara@opencirclecenter.org.

This is a teacher-less event, focused primarily on presence-based interactions between members of the community. The facilitator will offer enough structure for the event to run smoothly and safely, leaving plenty of space for what wants to emerge naturally. There will be no lecture and no personal guidance offered ─ simply a welcoming container for the miracle of True Community to happen.

About the facilitator:

Sara Kasprowicz has been living in deepening dedication to Truth since Life called her to India about 8 years ago. Upon joining the team of her first teacher, Sri Saraswathi Ma, a life of spiritually-driven travels began. A few years (and countries) later, she met her second important teacher, Aisha Salem, and spent a few years close to her Being. Sara recently moved back to her hometown Warsaw, Poland, and feels deeply nourished by the embrace of the Motherland.

Sara holds a Master's Degree in Psychology, a postgraduate diploma in Life & Business Coaching, as well as IT and Business education. She is passionate about supporting heart-based entrepreneurs, experienced in online media work, as well as facilitating online and in-person workshops. Since 2018 Sara has been taking care of the online program here at Open Circle Center.

Suggested donation: $10 to $20
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.

REGISTER

To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter