October 2020
Marlies Cocheret ~ Resting as Your Sovereignty
No matter what comes and goes, we are invited to rest unshakably as the empress or emperor of our universe, and fearlessly meet every moment as is, whether the realm is in harmony or suffering.
During this regular monthly satsang, Marlies gently guides us to rest in the silence of our being, our inner sanctuary. The more we rest as the silence that we are, the more this silence permeates our lives and the rest of the world.
As we fall into the arms of our true nature, sometimes that which is not silent may start to arise, such as trauma, pain, confusion, pleasure, etc. These are received and acknowledged in this space. With the assistance of Marlies’ presence as an anchor, your Being stands out as the only thing there really is … which is You!
We invite you to join us to deepen into the truth of your being.
There will be an opportunity to share, so please bring your experience, presence and questions to share with the group.
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. She helps people to see that freedom and peace lie not in escaping from difficulties, but rather in completely welcoming and receiving all that the Mystery presents.
She has been offering satsang and retreat since 2000 when Adyashanti asked her to teach. Marlies is trained as a psychologist in The Netherlands, a Hakomi therapist, and a Tantric educator. For over 25 years she has been ushering seekers into living the Divine in the body. She has a passion and a gift for bringing together the Sensual Body and the Silence of our Being.
She lives in Santa Cruz; California and works internationally. 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.”
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
Tilicho ~ Awakening and Healing
During Satsang with Tilicho, we inquire about our Real Nature and bring awareness and healing to the traumas and mind patterns preventing us from really being ourselves: from opening to the present moment as it is.
You are invited to dive deep within, and from a place of Self-recognition to let all causes of suffering emerge to the surface - in a safe atmosphere of love, compassion and understanding.
Thanks to the very interactive format of the meeting, you’ll be able to receive personal guidance and suggestions about your awakening and healing journey.
Tilicho spontaneously realized the Self in 1998 without following any teaching or practice. The absence of spiritual conditioning allowed her to see through the veils of spiritual idealism and illusions. She ended up spending thirteen years in Tiruvannamalai in south India, the seat of Ramana Maharshi and the sacred mountain, Arunachala. While recognizing the beauty of the Advaita teachings, she also observed that they can easily be misunderstood and distorted. Although the Self is eternally free from the world, it is not separate from it. Clarity does not exclude openness. Her teaching stresses the need to combine Masculine and Feminine qualities and approaches. It is an invitation to find unity within and without.
Sliding Scale: $15 to $25
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please register early if you can.
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.
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November 2020
Loch Kelly ~ Direct Inquiry: The Power of How
“Loch Kelly is one of the clearest expressions of authentic awakened freedom and love
that I know. He offers wise, loving medicine and direct, practical guidance which evolved from Loch’s vast experience and deep commitment to help others awaken to spiritual freedom.”
~ Adyashanti from Shift Into Freedom
The two most common approaches of direct awakening are 1) the do nothing or resting method and 2) the looking or inquiry method.
The Direct Inquiry approach begins with a looking method of awareness of awareness. However it does not stop with pure awareness but continues to untie knots of confusion to abide and live an awakened life. This natural unfolding moves from Waking up --- from small self, Waking as---the ground of awake awareness, Waking in --- awake awareness arises simultaneously as energy, love and embodiment, Waking out --- to create and relate from embodied, loving, awake consciousness.
How do we recognize our True nature if it can’t be done by the seeker, ego, doer, self, will, attention or a meditator? Our already awake awareness can intentionally unhook from being identified with our small self-center.
In Zen direct inquiry is described as “taking the backward step” In the Toasist book, The Secret of the Golden Flower, the secret is “turn the light of awareness around.” In Tibetan, the word “recognition”, is translated as “looking back at your own face.” In Mahamudra, it is described as “child awareness returns to mother awareness.” Only then do we have the capacity to unburden traumatized parts of us and reveal flourishing positive qualities.
Awake awareness is not ultimately passive but has intelligence and intentionality which allows us to live an awakened life. Direct Inquiry becomes the power of how to awaken when local awake awareness is discovered to be a reliable tuner.
Please join Loch in this experiential opportunity to learn how to access local awake awareness to intentionally glimpse and live from embodied open-hearted awareness.
Loch Kelly, M.Div., LCSW is an author of the award winning book The Way of Effortless Mindfulness. He is a licensed psychotherapist and recognized leader in the field of meditation and awakening. Loch is the founder of the non-profit, Open-Hearted Awareness Institute and has worked in community mental health, established homeless shelters and taught meditation to first responders in NYC during Covid-19. Loch graduated from Columbia University where he received a traveling fellowship to Sri Lanka, India and Nepal. Loch is known for his warm sense of humor, and his trust that awakening is the next natural stage of development. He teaches the advanced, yet simple, nondual pointers and direct methods of effortless mindfulness, informed by psychology and social justice. Loch collaborates with neuroscientists at Yale, UPenn and NYU in the study of how awareness training can enhance compassion and wellbeing.
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
As of SUNDAY morning 2 AM on NOV. 1st, clocks in the USA are turned back 1 hour.
Daylight Savings Time ends.
Times shown here will be Pacific Standard Time starting early am Sunday Nov. 1, 2020
Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT ~ SOMATIC AWAKENING: Transforming Core Beliefs
In this meeting, Lynn Marie offers a group process using the Flash Technique, a therapeutic method designed to reduce the charge on traumatic or painful memories and the grip of negative beliefs associated with them. This will then make it possible to truly transform these memories and beliefs held in the body-mind in awake awareness through a guided self-inquiry. There will be also be plenty of time for group process and sharing as well as individual assistance if needed.
This is an ongoing group that you can join anytime. It is recommended that you attend live, if possible, since it involves a deep therapeutic process. This would allow you to ask questions and receive individual guidance if needed. However, you are also welcome to register and do the process with the recording. If questions arise, you are welcome to 
contact Lynn Marie at lumieremft@gmail.com, or contact your regular therapist.
Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT is a nondual psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and author. She offers knowledge and wisdom gained from over 30 years of experience as a therapist as well as with nondual teachings. She is the author of Awakened Relating: A Guide to Embodying Undivided Love in Intimate Relationships and The Awakening West: Evidence of a Spreading Enlightenment.
Suggested donation: $15 to $35
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
Neelam ~ Freedom in Times of COVID ~ 3-hour TeleSatsang
Uncertainty and Resilience of the Nervous System
as Gateways to Awakening
Satsang with Neelam
We are living in a unique moment in time, maybe even during a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The invitation to Awakening and Freedom just became so much more available and the potential for true transformation is so profound now.
We can both individually and collectively face our fears and dependence on what we "know" as the world that we are used to — as it is changing and falling apart.
We can however, use this profound slowing down and change for transformation and Freedom for truer and deeper reliance on Peace (our true nature); for change in our way of Being — internally and in the world — and ultimately for Awakening.
In our upcoming 3-hour call, I will be addressing:
- the Nervous System and our capacity to Be Here;
- embodiment of challenging states;
- and speaking about uncertainty and the steps necessary for Awakening now
As always, we will have time for sharing, Q and A, and practice.
Let's use this opportunity together for Awakening, Embodiment, and Freedom, to grow in Peace and to expand our capacity for Peace and change in the world.
Areas of interest:
- The changing world — how it affects us and our opportunity for transformation
- How to use patterns of the past and current reactivity for Awakening, Embodiment and Freedom and how to expand our capacity to live in the world in Peace
- Uncertainty and Resilience of Nervous System as gateways to Awakening
About Neelam
Neelam is a direct disciple of HWL Poonja (affectionately known as Papaji), whose own teacher was Ramana Maharshi. Neelam’s unequivocal commitment to Truth helps us turn inward and release underlying patterns of conditioning which block the recognition of our True Nature. With the utmost tenderness, she invites us into the same recognition of Truth that her teacher, Papaji, transmitted to her, while helping us to address all aspects of daily living, including past conditioning and trauma.
Testimonials from Program Participants
“What’s different about Neelam is that she demystifies the actual practice of being present – she’s helped me see what’s actually happening when feelings and emotions come up, and how, in a very practical way, to deal with them. Her strong point is “how to actually do this being the present thing.” It really helps to take it out of the mind and into the body”
“Neelam showed me that Being Here was what I was looking for. Then she showed me how to build Nervous System capacity to Be Here and that took time and repetition”
“Awakening is a shift from identifying yourself as this body to knowing yourself as Presence. Freedom means a true independence from the past, where our ability to Be Here and the action in the moment are not guided by our attachment to the arising past. To truly be Free we need to embody our recognition of Presence, and that requires growing of the capacity of our nervous system to Be Here. It is in the meeting of what arises that we find true and lasting freedom.”
Neelam's website: www.neelam.org
YouTube Video Recording You May Like: Everything Ok Just the Way it Is/ Practice with Neelam
Sliding Scale: $20 to $45
Some Partial Scholarships Available
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
Isira ~ Awakening in a Time of Significant Change in the World: 3 Part Retreat
Three-Part Retreat: Sundays, Nov. 8, 15 & 22
3:00 – 5:00 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.
and lived experience during these times.
The world is experiencing many challenges and changes. As spiritual seekers we can be experiencing an even greater gap between what we are living and feeling, and the spiritual ideals of awakening and consciousness.
How to consciously respond and adapt to this time of significant change in the world:
In this three part workshop series Isira will explore with us how to bridge the higher principles and elements of the spiritual path with the raw reality of the challenges being experienced as a human on the planet now. Isira will share how we can find relevance in our spiritual ideals and apply them for the greatest benefit and effect.
This will support you to understand:
- What is the relationship between the upper realm of truth and our lived experience, and how to bridge the gap between the two?
- Why we are experiencing what we are, and finding deeper understanding?
- How our own spiritual process relates to these times of crisis, and how to bring conscious change?
- How what is happening in the world relates to being on our spiritual path?
- Why we may still be struggling and how to restore faith and power?
Isira will share insights, tools and meditations enabling you to benefit from spiritual theory at a more lived level. This will support you to more easily bridge the gap in your own experience and give you the ability to:
- Respond to the disruptions internally and externally.
- Nurture and support the effects of these disruptions internally and externally.
- Anchor in a consciously poised state and therefore set in motion a higher paradigm of experience and intentional creation.
Part 1
We will acknowledge and recognize both the upper realm of spiritual (more abstract) ideals and principles and the ground level experience of what we are living in. We will recognize the challenges we are faced with and bring a new perspective to both of these.
Part 2
We will learn how to respond to the challenges effectively. Learn which tools can assist us most in meeting the challenges and disruptions to restore balance internally and externally.
Part 3
We will discover how to ground and occupy ourselves in a higher vibrational state and intentionally create a higher paradigm.
About Isira
Isira (pronounced "a-SIRE-a") Sananda is a spiritual teacher from Southern Australia of mixed European and Aboriginal heritage whose teaching ─ rooted in non-duality ─ revolves around the primacy of love, the necessity to transform limiting beliefs, and the profound need for deep communion with the Earth, its creatures, and elemental forces. From infancy onwards, Isira experienced profound meditative states, prophetic dreams, powerful visions, psychic abilities, vivid past life memories and auspicious synchronicities. After a difficult childhood, and surviving a brutal murder attempt as a teenage runaway, Isira received ordination from the Dalai Lama and spent several years living in Himalayan hermitages as a Tibetan initiate, before returning to Australia to explore her indigenous roots. Today she functions as a wisdom keeper, a spiritual leader, an ardent advocate for conscious change in the world, and an exemplar of the life of love, all the while bringing penetrating insight into both the nature of consciousness and the urgent global challenges we all face. She is the author of a remarkable memoir, Buddha on the Dance Floor, and a book of teachings, Awakening You: Empowering Peace, Love and Freedom on Earth.
“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.”
www.isira.com
Watch an hour-long conversation between Isira and Open Circle's Sara.
Sliding Scale: $50 to $90
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please Register Early if you can.
Meeting with Mukti
What is the most essential you that is present regardless of thought or emotion? Who or what has been present for all of your life experience? How does this spirit of constancy touch your life? Mukti will speak on these compelling topics and follow with time for questions and answers pointing directly to the true nature of Self.
Mukti’s name originates in Sanskrit and is most often translated as “liberation,” a term used in Vedanta and Buddhism much the way the term “salvation” is used in Christianity. Mukti has been the Associate Teacher of Open Gate Sangha since 2004 and has been a student of her husband, Adyashanti, since he began teaching in 1996, when they founded Open Gate Sangha together.
Previously, Mukti was raised and schooled in the Catholic tradition and also studied the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda for over 20 years—two paths that have greatly informed her journeys into meditation, introspection, and prayer.
She holds a master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine, a license in acupuncture, and a Hatha Yoga teaching certification. These backgrounds in body awareness and the healing arts, as well as her years of study with Adyashanti, largely inform her presentation style, her recommended inquiry methods, and her interest in the energetic unfolding of realization and embodiment. For further information about her teachings and programs see:
www.muktisource.org
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
Stephan Bodian ~ The Role and Integrity of the Teacher on the Journey of Awakening
Some people would argue that spiritual teachers are unnecessary and outdated in the 21st century, and that in fact we’re all teaching one another all the time. Yet we seem to keep being drawn back to those who have experienced what we aspire to experience, help point the way for us on our own journey of awakening, and hopefully embody some of the qualities of wisdom and compassion we seek.
What value do spiritual teachers have these days? What are the different roles they can play, from spiritual friend to mentor to trusted spiritual guide? And how can we assess our potential teachers clearly, determine what they may have to offer us, and discern whether they have the capacity to do their job with genuine devotion and integrity? No teacher is perfect, of course, but it can be extremely helpful to know how to differentiate those few who are actively exploiting their position for their own personal power and self-aggrandizement from those who offer their guidance with love, dedication, and integrity.
As always, this satsang with Stephan will include guided meditation, teachings, and plenty of time for questions, dialogue, and discussion.
Stephan Bodian has been sharing the direct approach to spiritual awakening for more than 40 years. A former Buddhist monk, a licensed psychotherapist, and a longtime student of Advaita master Jean Klein, Stephan received Dharma transmission from Adyashanti in 2001. Since 2007 he has taught the annual months-long School for Awakening, which will begin again, in online form, in 2021. His books include Wake Up Now and Beyond Mindfulness.
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 48 hours.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Tilicho ~ Deep Dive into Awakening and Healing: 6th Chakra – 4-Hour Workshop
During this series of workshops with Tilicho, we inquire about our Real Nature and bring awareness and healing to the traumas and mind patterns which prevent us from expressing our true self.
This session focuses on the 6th chakra: Enlightenment.
You are invited to dive deep within, and let all suffering emerge to the surface without identifying with your thoughts, your emotions and the suffering. The “meeting” happens in a safe atmosphere of love, compassion and understanding.
Thanks to the very interactive format of the meeting, you’ll be able to receive personal guidance and suggestions about your awakening and healing journey.
We meet from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm, with a half an hour break.
This workshop is part of a monthly series, where we explore ourselves chakra by chakra. You are welcome to attend the whole series, or join individual workshops, even if you have not attended the previous ones.
Tilicho spontaneously realized the Self in 1998 without following any teaching or practice. The absence of spiritual conditioning allowed her to see through the veils of spiritual idealism and illusions. She ended up spending thirteen years in Tiruvannamalai in south India, the seat of Ramana Maharshi and the sacred mountain, Arunachala. While recognizing the beauty of the Advaita teachings, she also observed that they can easily be misunderstood and distorted. Although the Self is eternally free from the world, it is not separate from it. Clarity does not exclude openness. Her teaching stresses the need to combine Masculine and Feminine qualities and approaches. It is an invitation to find unity within and without.
Sliding Scale: $25 to $50
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within 48 hours.
You're welcome to join, even if you can't attend the live session.
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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.
There will be time for questions and conversation each day as our inquiry deepens.
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.
Sliding Scale: $50 to $90
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