January 2019
Shakti Caterina Maggi ~ Awakening in Daily Life
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 to $25
Find out more »Neelam ~ The Role of the Nervous System in Awakening and Freedom – What does it mean to Be Here?
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"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
This call is an invitation to Presence and to Neelam’s teaching and a practical exploration of the role of the nervous system in Awakening and Freedom. The nervous system and its capacity to Be Here is an essential element for Awakening, Embodiment and for Freedom.
When unmet, un-experienced Tendencies of the Past arise - and we so often believe it and identify ourselves with that – it affects and manifests in our physiology and that shows up as thoughts and as feelings, emotions and sensations.
If there is no awareness of that, and no Capacity to Be Here, our nervous system reacts and moves into fight / flight / freeze or overwhelm, and we end up re-enacting or suppressing and thus perpetuating the Past.
The capacity of our nervous system to Be Here and experience the arising Past is often the missing link between our Desire for Truth and our ability to independently experience Presence and Self-Inquiry, which is what takes us directly into Awakening, Embodiment and Freedom.
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 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”
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »February 2019
Pamela Wilson ~ Constancy, Strength and Kindness
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! All the final teachings in every tradition are the pointings about the transformative power of kindness and love. When given within our own embodiment, it resolves the old, the stuck, the habitual. The defenses cannot defend against kindness and respect. They bow back and relax into strength, support and creativity. All they were waiting for, is for you to function as the sage you are.
Pamela evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She is celebrated for her ability to open the heart and create a space in which long-cherished struggles and notions about one's identity relax. Featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, Pamela is at her best in heart-felt dialogue, so please come and bring your questions!
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »Tom Kurzka ~ Rest in Being: The Love of Your Life
You are invited to join Tom as we explore this experience called me and my world. We’ll begin with an introduction followed by a brief guided meditation, then open dialogue. There is no question or concern that is too unworthy to be addressed. Often the most deep rooted problems are our gateway to the Love that we all are. Through this process Tom holds a sweet tender kindness that makes many who work with him feel held and safe. Within this supportive framework our full humanness is embraced and touched. As we radically accept and meet the worst of the worst, a gentle piercing happens as the entirety of our human experience melts in Being’s all-embracing arms, this ever present Love. We see that we are that Love, this sweetness that unconditionally holds our humanness.
In 2000, after a lifelong battle trying to hold onto his false sense of a separate self, Tom’s fight against Reality spontaneously ended, resulting in a shift into unitive consciousness or Being. Shortly thereafter, Tom was asked to share and has since been holding small group meetings at his home in Oregon and also with a group in Virginia. Tom is known for his humility and a profound acceptance of what is. The guidance moving through him has flavors of Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Buddhism and, most importantly, an ongoing revelation of living in the moment.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »Marlies Myoku Cocheret ~ An Exploration of Total Inclusion
How Available are You to Stay Awake as a Human-Divine in Today's World?
It is up to us to live the awakened life in every moment and every situation. What does it mean to step into living the total intimacy and inclusion with ALL of life ─ including pleasure, pain, peace, body, suffering, happiness, rage, Self-realization and wondrous emptiness?
My own recent experience ─ of a long and extensive surgery to remove my two kidneys and receive a transplanted kidney, as well as the recovery that followed ─ had and still has many layers of challenges. Through it all, Divine Radiance carries me.
How do we unpack the wrapping paper of adversity and discover what is inside? Life/She helps us cultivate Being through offering the most wonderful challenges. When separation is out the window, all aspects of life are intimately welcomed and experienced. Then, we live in total inclusion with what is, which is the dance of our Humanity and our Divine radiance. Come and explore your delicious Self!
Marlies 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, but 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
Find out more »March 2019
Jeannie Zandi ~ Mercy for Humanness
Unfolding that which you are in daily life requires a forgiving and merciful regard for the frailty and limitations of humanness. Join Jeannie and friends to explore this way of love, softening and making room in our spiritual endeavors for the humility of our human aspect.
Jeannie’s gift for inviting people to join her in resting and rooted presence evokes a deep meeting with oneself and reality. Within that, Jeannie’s humor and iconoclasm serve to bring people into an understanding that is beyond the intellectual. Through silent and guided meditation, a spontaneous talk and exchange with participants, Jeannie will host a space of clarity and warmth where the true richness of life can be experienced, and your innermost spiritual questions can be met fully. Come join us!
Jeannie is the director of Living as Love, a nonprofit organization dedicated to seeding a culture of the Heart on the planet, inspiring, teaching and supporting people to live from their essence as Love. A year before the birth of her daughter, Jeannie was plunged into a dark night of the soul that culminated in a radical shift of consciousness. She is known for her fearless clarity, tender mercy toward humanness, and a juicy, poetic and often humorous style that draws from Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Christian mysticism and the ongoing revelation of fully engaged living. Residing in Colorado, she travels widely in the US, bringing a down-to-earth embodied teaching of living as love.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »Marlies Myoku Cocheret ~ The Deepest Love Affair – Being Human
When the awareness of the perfection of all that is taken away & all that is given penetrates to the bone, we find ourselves on the narrow path. The narrow path means there is no room for anything but resting as the silence of our being and the total receiving of our humanity. That is the practice. Sounds really simple, yet not that easy.
It takes courage and curiosity to open ourselves completely to the practice resting as silence. It becomes easier to receive wholeheartedly our humanity in all its forms, sounds, feelings, and sensations. This is the deepest love affair - the coming together of our humanity and our divinity as one. Our stories start melting away. Step by step we are identifying with the one ground of being. From there we move in the world as human-beings. Is there anything else you wish for?
Most of the events Marlies offers are around this topic. Daring to dive in with clear intention, living as the fullness of your being. Life will show you every step of the way. Which She has done all along for all of us? Can you trust that now?!
Marlies Myoku 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, but 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
Find out more »Aisha Salem ~ Ground of Being
Aisha Salem is a deeply realized woman of Truth. She has been living the unfolding of her Being through 17 years of radical surrender and been teaching for 15 years across the world. Aisha lives in Denmark with a growing community and is the founder of Gateway, which is the name of a container for exploration, investigation and realization of reality in everything from the deepest intimacy to the widest expanse of Truth.
The teaching of Aisha Salem invites to relax into the fire of Truth. It is an invitation into the deepest Intimacy with Reality as the meeting with your Self as every aspect of Reality – from your Empty and pre-existential Core, over your recognition as Love and One Being and all the way into your Humanness and true bowing to the Ground.
It is an invitation to that meeting with yourself, which requires a full face-off with Reality – as the full relaxation into the Ground of Being. The invitation is both Vast, Wide and Deep. The Vast part of it, is for your recognition as Emptiness, which truly brings Freedom and pure Brilliance by the birth of pure and Mind. The Diamond – Clear, Sharp and Bright. The Wider part of the invitation, is for your recognition of yourself as pure and Universal Spirit – able and ready to move across every existential layer as True Action of your Being recognised as Love itself.
The deepest part of the invitation, is what brings all of the pieces together – it is for your enjoyment and fulfilment as a True Human Being and is Your exhale down into the Holding of the body as pure Consciousness. For the Healing and Wholeness of your human state, as you relax into the Core of the body and dissolution of the somebodiness on Ground – being real and present with what is pleasant as well as unpleasant – for a full blossoming to and fulfilment of the sweetness, passion and innocence of your True, Natural and Individual Self.
Every angle of the teaching of Aisha Salem has the single and One-pointed direction of emerging as the True Human – emptied of identification (the twist away from Reality) and Naked to Reality through both mind, heart and belly/ground.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »Adam Chacksfield ~ Falling Open Together
Inviting us to receive the ultimate gift, Adam shares the direct experience of the heart, mind, and life falling open. In this effortless opening, the suffering involved in resisting feelings and believing thoughts spontaneously releases. Our natural abundance of joy, peace, wisdom, and love becomes apparent and available. Heart-centered, gentle, and direct, Adam offers a path straight into the truth of who you are.
"Adam is a great messenger of truth. He has a very unique transmission that does wonderful things for my spirit—spa treatment.” — Pamela Wilson, featured in Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom by Rita Marie Robinson
“Adam delivers the essence of nondual awareness in an uncompromising form. He is whole-heartedly committed to creating new possibilities that are grounded in awareness and practical at the same time. I highly recommend him.” — Peter Fenner, Ph.D., author of Radiant Mind
Adam Chacksfield, Ph.D. is founder of the Center for Nondual Awareness and creator of “Falling Open”, a four-month online course transforming how participants experience their lives.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »Tom Kurzka ~ Rest in Being: The Love of Your Life
You are invited to join Tom as we explore this experience called me and my world. We’ll begin with an introduction followed by a brief guided meditation, then open dialogue. There is no question or concern that is too unworthy to be addressed. Often the most deep rooted problems are our gateway to the Love that we all are. Through this process Tom holds a sweet tender kindness that makes many who work with him feel held and safe. Within this supportive framework our full humanness is embraced and touched. As we radically accept and meet the worst of the worst, a gentle piercing happens as the entirety of our human experience melts in Being’s all-embracing arms, this ever present Love. We see that we are that Love, this sweetness that unconditionally holds our humanness.
In 2000, after a lifelong battle trying to hold onto his false sense of a separate self, Tom’s fight against Reality spontaneously ended, resulting in a shift into unitive consciousness or Being. Shortly thereafter, Tom was asked to share and has since been holding small group meetings at his home in Oregon and also with a group in Virginia. Tom is known for his humility and a profound acceptance of what is. The guidance moving through him has flavors of Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Buddhism and, most importantly, an ongoing revelation of living in the moment.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »