September 2019
Ajaya Sommers & Dustin DiPerna ~ Of Earth and Stars: Blending Radical Awakening with Embodied Intimacy
Co-Sponsored by BAI and Open Circle Center
Awakening to the ever-present and expansive nature of awareness is only half of the journey. For many of us, the real work is to learn how to more fully embrace our relative human experience with greater levels of authenticity, intimacy, and connection.
In this evening immersion, Ajaya and Dustin will lead a series of practices designed to help you come to a fuller understanding of how your humanity is an expression of your divinity:
Learn the majesty and freedom of opening to a boundless body of awareness.
Reclaim your native innocence as you better understand your needs for both safety and exploration in relation to others.
Explore how to blend an expanded open awareness with practices designed to increase intimacy and connection with others in a grounded way.
Throughout the evening, Ajaya and Dustin will hold a container of safety and trust allowing you to explore the contours of your own direct experience. Through an intelligent weaving of both individual and collective practices, you’ll have the chance to discover the original innocence of your humanity (Earth) as well as the freedom and joy that comes from touching your own divinity (Stars).
When we come to know that we are of both Earth and Stars, we establish a way of life in the sacred middle: we live in a field of coherence that is uniquely ours to inhabit.
Join us for an evening of sacred exploration.
Dustin DiPerna is a Harvard-trained scholar of world religions. He studies and teaches in the Tibetan meditation lineages of Mahamudra and Dzogchen with Daniel P. Brown and is a long-term student of American philosopher Ken Wilber. His books include Streams of Wisdom, Evolution's Ally, Purpose Rising, and Earth is Eden. He currently teaches at Stanford University.
Ajaya Sommers is a gifted healer, teacher and creative catalyst in the field of embodied awakening. For the last 25 years, she has been instrumental in facilitating conscious evolution in hundreds of people's lives. All of her programs are grounded in science, expanded through devotional practice and made real through direct experience. Within a field of unconditionally loving presence, Ajaya facilitates and transmits 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 our human potential. She is a certified Biodynamic Craniosacral Integration Teacher as well as an Authorized Continuum Teacher.
www.ajayasommers.com
www.dustindiperna.com
$20 single; $35 couple; $25 at-the-door – Preregistration Strongly Recommended
Get Tickets Here
Ajaya Sommers & Dustin DiPerna ~ Of Earth and Stars: Blending Radical Awakening with Embodied Intimacy
Awakening to the ever-present and expansive nature of awareness is only half of the journey. For many of us, the real work is to learn how to more fully embrace our relative human experience with greater levels of authenticity, intimacy, and connection.
In this evening immersion, Ajaya and Dustin will lead a series of practices designed to help you come to a fuller understanding of how your humanity is an expression of your divinity:
Through an intelligent weaving of both individual and collective practices, you’ll have the chance to discover the original innocence of your humanity (Earth) as well as the freedom and joy that comes from touching your own divinity (Stars).
Dustin DiPerna is a Harvard-trained scholar of world religions. He studies and teaches in the Tibetan meditation lineages of Mahamudra and Dzogchen with Daniel P. Brown and is a long-term student of American philosopher Ken Wilber. He currently teaches at Stanford University.
Ajaya Sommers is a gifted healer, teacher and creative catalyst in the field of embodied awakening, and facilitates and transmits 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 our human potential.
Find out more »October 2019
Lynn Marie Lumiere ~ Awareness: The Solution in Which Problems Dissolve ~ 3 Day Online Retreat
A 3 Day Psycho-Spiritual Online Retreat with Lynn Marie Lumiere
Awareness: The Solution in Which Problems Dissolve
October 4th, 5th, 6th (Friday, Saturday and Sunday)
10 am to 1:00 pm (Pacific Time - San Francisco, CA, USA)
Time Zone Converter
This retreat will bring together nondual psychology and nondual wisdom to focus on both waking up and resolving the inner problems we live with such as depression, anxiety, shame, low self-worth, insecurity, and stress. These inner problems create outer problems such as addictions and issues with health, finances and relationships. We cannot resolve these problems within the conditioned ego-mind that created them in the first place. We must also recognize and rely on the Awareness that is the context for all that we experience and is always and already free of all problems. We can then resolve our issues from, or as, this problem-free, thought-free, resistance-free Awareness.
You are invited to come together with others who are also struggling with the challenges of both waking up and being with the problems we are faced with in life. We will focus on simple, practical ways to do this, as well as guided meditation, sharing and processing. You are invited to begin where you are, with acceptance and compassion, as you learn news ways to be in relationship to life’s challenges.
Find out more »Pamela Wilson ~ Relaxed, Rooted, Flow
"I am Rooted and I Flow” - a marvelous quote by Virginia Wolff confirming what is already here for all of us as embodied presence. Let’s explore this relaxed rootedness and honor together the intelligence of Life’s flow, within and without.
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 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 »Pamela Wilson ~ Relaxed, Rooted, Flow
"I am Rooted and I Flow” - a marvelous quote by Virginia Wolff confirming what is already here for all of us as embodied presence. Let’s explore this relaxed rootedness and honor together the intelligence of Life’s flow, within and without.
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 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!
Find out more »Neelam ~ The Role of the Nervous System in Awakening and Freedom ~ 3-hour TeleSatsang
10 am to 1 pm (Pacific Time - San Francisco, CA, USA)
Time Zone Converter
What does it mean to Be Here?
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 are essential elements for Awakening, Embodiment and for Freedom.
When unmet, un-experienced tendencies from the past arise, and we so often believe them and identify ourselves with them, so that they affect and manifest in our physiology and show up as thoughts, feelings, emotions and sensations.
Without awareness and the 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.
“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.”
3-Hour Experiential Intensive
Sliding Scale: $20 to $45
Neelam ~ The Role of the Nervous System in Awakening and Freedom ~ 3-hour TeleSatsang
This call is an invitation to explore the role of the nervous system in Awakening and Freedom.
When unmet, un-experienced tendencies from the past arise, and we so often believe them and identify ourselves with them, so that they affect and manifest in our physiology and show up as thoughts, feelings, emotions and sensations.
Without awareness and the 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.
Neelam is a direct disciple of HWL Poonja, 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.
Find out more »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
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.
Find out more »Shakti Caterina Maggi ~ Living Awakening / Embodied Consciousness
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.”
Thursday Evening (Oct. 17th) ~ Living Awakening
From understanding to being, the passage of embodying awakening requires a deep integration into our everyday life of what has been revealed in our spiritual journey. Perception is the way through which we will directly connect to our non-dual nature, as all illusion of separation is purely conceptual.
Where: Chochmat HaLev, 2215 Prince St., Berkeley, CA
When: 7:00pm - 8:45pm
Suggested donation: $15 - $25
No one turned away for lack of funds
Sunday Daylong (Oct. 20th ) ~ Embodied Consciousness
This experiential intensive will lead to profound access to our true Consciousness, and will guide participants in the transformation of the way in which we see ourselves and the world, as well as the way in which we can deal with suffering in ourselves and others. The intensive will include meditations, open discussion, and special perception exercises to help us see and dissolve the patterns of holding and resistance that reinforce the sense of separation.
Where: Chochmat HaLev, 2215 Prince St., Berkeley, CA
When: 11:00am - 5:00 pm
Sliding scale: $60 - $120
No pre-registration required.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Note: Per venue policy, only vegetarian food is allowed on premises at Chochmat HaLev