October 2024
Rupert Spira ~ The Essence of Non-Duality ~ In-Person & Livestream ~ Berkeley, CA
“Meditation is what we are, not what we do; the separate self is what we do, not what we are.”
In the last few years Rupert Spira has become one of the most respected and sought-after teachers of non-dual wisdom, known for his crystal clear use of language, laser-like intellect, skillful guided inquiries, and powerfully direct pointing to aware presence—all delivered with warmth, wit and an unmatched and distinctive eloquence.
In his meetings, Rupert explores the perennial, non-dual understanding that lies at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mystical Christianity, Sufism, Zen etc., and which is also the direct, ever-present reality of our own experience. This is a contemporary, experiential approach involving silent meditation, guided meditation and conversation, and requires no affiliation to any particular religious or spiritual tradition. All that is required is an interest in the essential nature of experience, and in the longing for love, peace and happiness around which most of our lives revolve.
After thirty years of intense seeking, Rupert met his primary teacher Francis Lucille, who introduced him to the direct way taught by his own teacher, Jean Klein. He is the author of several books, including his latest, You are the Happiness You Seek.
The meeting will start with a contemplation led by Rupert followed by a Question and Answer session.
Open Circle events are typically recorded and made available to others, including, but not limited to use in our Library, YouTube, social media, etc. No participant faces are recorded, only their voices. Your participation implies consent for us to use your shares, so please share accordingly.
Suggested Donation: $25 - $40
No one turned away to lack of funds.
No pre-registration for In-Person Attendance.
Just pay at the door.
Cash Preferred. Check or Venmo OK.
Card payment may be an option.
PARKING: There is some street parking in the neighborhood, free and without time limit.
Nearby parking fills up quickly. Plan accordingly.
For inquiries contact LocalEvents@opencirclecenter.org
If you have symptoms of a respiratory infection, or have had a recent
Covid exposure or positive test, please stay home out of consideration for others.
Rupert Spira ~ The Essence of Non-Duality ~ In-Person & LIVESTREAM in Berkeley, CA
In the last few years Rupert Spira has become one of the most respected and sought-after teachers of non-dual wisdom, known for his crystal clear use of language, laser-like intellect, skillful guided inquiries, and powerfully direct pointing to aware presence—all delivered with warmth, wit and an unmatched and distinctive eloquence.
In his meetings, Rupert explores the perennial, non-dual understanding that lies at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions, and which is also the direct, ever-present reality of our own experience. This is a contemporary, experiential approach involving guided meditation and conversation. All that is required is an interest in the essential nature of experience, and in the longing for love, peace and happiness around which most of our lives revolve.
Find out more »Ishita Sharma ~ Embodiment Lab – Experiments in Embodying Presence
We are not thinking beings who sense; we are sensing beings who think. And re-setting that balance is key to joy, to vibrance, and true liberation!
Join us for Embodiment Lab, an experiential exploration of the body as a doorway to presence and aliveness, returning to the ground of being through our own direct experience.
We will use the fullness of our experience to tune and attune to our bodies, illuminating our deepest healing and freedom. Engaging and transcending our senses, awareness, breath, movement and sound and more, we will use our body's signals to return to sensate presence.
TOGETHER ON OUR CALL WE WILL:
- Explore states of inner coherence in our own experience.
- Engage simple yet profound somatic and energetic practices.
- Experience the healing power of inner and group coherence.
- Have space to share, ask questions and learn from within and together.
- Learn about ways to deepen our access to embodied presence.
All levels of experience are welcom.
BIO
Ishita Sharma serves as a spiritual teacher, healing mirror, embodiment guide, and Core Energetics Practitioner of body-based psychotherapy. Teaching Universal principles of healing and mysticism, she is devoted to supporting healing and awakening in all those committed to living a bright and connected life, sharing their gifts for the good of the Whole.
Growing up in India, asking big questions, Ishita's curiosities about the nature of All Things fueled a series of profound openings. Having her relationship to Self, Life and others re-calibrated, while learning to honor her own body's signals as the ultimate path to God, led her to study various spiritual, neurological, relational, somatic and shamanic modalities, through the Grace of her teachers and the Book of her Life.
Ishita has coached visionaries and leaders from Google, Harvard, MIT, Silicon Valley, Broadway artists, and renowned scientists, coaches, teachers, artists and activists. Clients come to her to grow through their deepest longings and challenges, held and mirrored in their perfect wholeness. She points every one of them back to center.
Ishita’s teachings, like her learnings, support self-study through direct realization. They marry western mind and eastern spirit through the human body and heart to facilitate embodied awakening and authentic connection, the balm for our tumultuous times.
Care for our sacred shared world informs all her endeavors. Ishita now uses her skills to help clients connect with their inner signals so they can find rest in minds, ease in their bodies, joy in their hearts, and embody their True Nature in right relation with Life. She brings 15 years of advanced facilitation, a refined meditation practice, and a fierce devotion to her own healing to serve. She looks forward to meeting and supporting you!
Suggested donation: $15 to $40
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
Ishita Sharma ~ Embodiment Lab – Experiments in Embodying Presence
We are not thinking beings who sense; we are sensing beings who think. And re-setting that balance is key to joy, to vibrance, and true liberation!
Join us for an experiential exploration of the body as a doorway to presence and aliveness, returning to the ground of being through our own direct experience.
Engaging and transcending our senses, awareness, breath, movement and sound and more, we will use our body's signals to return to sensate presence.
Ishita Sharma serves as a spiritual teacher, healing mirror, embodiment guide, and Core Energetics Practitioner. Ishita’s teachings support self-study through direct realization, marrying western mind and eastern spirit through the human body and heart to facilitate embodied awakening and authentic connection, the balm for our tumultuous times.
Find out more »Amoda Maa ~ Unveiling the Self to Reveal the Freedom of Being
Amoda Maa offers a profound invitation to all those who wish to embody the truth of awakened consciousness in the midst of everyday life. Her meetings include silent or guided meditation, discourse, and an opportunity to ask questions from the innermost. Speaking with clarity and grace, she invites an open-hearted honesty to the exploration of what it means to recognize and live from our essential nature as Being-ness.
Amoda’s teachings are free from any ideology and are not affiliated with any lineage or tradition, and yet the luminous truth is the same nondual understanding at the core of many spiritual traditions. Arising from her own direct experience and expressed in a contemporary language, these teachings are relevant and accessible to all people from all backgrounds and cultures.
Since 2016, she has been living in the US, and today her teachings are followed by a growing global community who attend her online programs as well as in person retreats in the USA and Europe. She has been a speaker and guest teacher at a variety of conferences, featured in several magazines, interviewed for numerous broadcasts and podcasts, and is the author of several books including Embodied Enlightenment and Falling Open in a World Falling Apart. She is the founder and spiritual director of the Amoda Maa Foundation, and her life and work are dedicated to supporting an “inner transformation of consciousness” and envisioning a new world of peace and enlightened living.
www.amodamaa.com
Suggested donation: $15 to $40
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
Amoda Maa ~ Unveiling the Self to Reveal the Freedom of Being
Amoda Maa offers a profound invitation to all those who wish to embody the truth of awakened consciousness in the midst of everyday life. Speaking with clarity and grace, she invites an open-hearted honesty to the exploration of what it means to recognize and live from our essential nature as Being-ness.
Amoda’s teachings are free from any ideology, and yet the luminous truth is the same nondual understanding at the core of many spiritual traditions. Arising from her own direct experience and expressed in a contemporary language, these teachings are relevant and accessible to all people from all backgrounds and cultures.
Find out more »John Prendergast, Lisa Ferguson & Jeremy Lent ~ Engaged Nonduality
Engaged Nonduality
From Awakened Heart to a Flourishing Future
with John Prendergast, Lisa Ferguson
and Jeremy Lent ~ Oct. 20th
Recording will be emailed to participants within a week.
You’re welcome to join even if you can’t attend the live session.
A deep investigation into the source of the metacrisis reveals, at its root, a worldview of separation: a belief that we’re split between mind and body, separate from each other, and at odds with the natural world.
In this session, Jeremy Lent will show how that worldview has led to today’s civilizational crisis and what’s at stake for our future. Then, we’ll explore an alternative worldview of deep interconnectedness that arises naturally both from modern science as well as the great wisdom traditions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Indigenous knowledge— and what it implies for our identity and values.
Finally, Jeremy will offer a glimpse of what a civilization might look like based on values arising from this worldview—one that sets the conditions for all people to thrive on a regenerated Earth: an ecological civilization.
Jeremy Lent is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. His award-winning books, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, and The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, trace the historical underpinnings and flaws of the dominant worldview, and offer a foundation for an integrative worldview that could lead humanity to a flourishing future. He has written extensively about the vision and specifics of an ecological civilization and is founder of the Deep Transformation Network, an online global community exploring pathways for a deep transformation toward a life-affirming future on a regenerated Earth. Author website: jeremylent.com
Engaged Nonduality Series
This series weaves nondual awakening and an embodied response to our world in crisis. We are facing intersecting crises of climate breakdown, the potential of ecological and systems collapse, severe injustice and inequality, rising authoritarianism, unaligned tech and AI, and more. The path of nonduality has much to offer in these times, including a deep recognition of our wholeness and shared Being, and opening to the wellspring of our wise response.
While awakening is often engaged in a more personal context, we are expanding the context to include structural harm and systemic crisis, where the rubber hits the road in our world today. This series invites guest presenters to explore how the wisdom of these nondual teachings may be deeply embodied through a response to our world in crisis. These sessions may include guided meditations, group and dyadic inquiry and group interaction.
Register for one or more dates, or the full series together.
October 13th: John Prendergast and Lisa Ferguson ~
Awakening and Action: Toward an Engaged Nondual Approach
The following events in the series will be hosted by John Prendergast and Lisa Ferguson.
October 20th: Jeremy Lent ~ From Awakened Heart to a Flourishing Earth
October 27th: Jonathan Gustin ~ Non-dual Responsibility - Exploring Non-duality & the Metacrisis
November 2nd: Caverly Morgan ~ Acting on Behalf of The Heart of Who We Are
John J. Prendergast, Ph.D. is the author of The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence (2019 ) and In Touch: How to Tune In to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself (2015) and is working on a new book entitled Your Deepest Ground: A Guide to Embodied Spirituality (March 2025). He is a retired Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies as well as a retired psychotherapist. He studied with the European sage Jean Klein for many years as well as with Adyashanti who gave dharma transmission to John in August, 2023. John and his wife Christiane offer residential retreats in the United States and Europe.
www.listeningfromsilence.com
YouTube channel
Lisa Ferguson, Ph.D. is the founder of Climate Compassion, and has focused on supporting planetary wellbeing as a healing arts practitioner, climate justice activist, organizer and contemplative. She offers psychospiritual support to activists through one-one sessions and small groups, weaving together a focus on awakening, healing and wise action.
Suggested Donation: $15 to $40
(any amount acceptable, no one turned away for lack of funds)
Please register early if you can.
Full Series: Sundays October 13, 20, 27, and Saturday Nov 2
Suggested Donation: $60 to $120
(no one turned away for lack of funds)
The event leaders are donating their entire share of the event donations, after expenses, to support Rob Schwartz’s vision of maintaining his property to be available as a spiritual retreat space, where Open Circle may hold some of its events.
The events will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
John Prendergast, Lisa Ferguson & Jeremy Lent ~ Engaged Nonduality
A deep investigation into the source of the meta-crisis reveals, at its root, a worldview of separation: a belief that we’re split between mind and body, separate from each other, and at odds with the natural world.
In this session, Jeremy Lent will show how that worldview has led to today’s civilizational crisis and what’s at stake for our future. Then, we’ll glimpse what a civilization might look like based on values that set the conditions for all people to thrive on a regenerated Earth: an ecological civilization.
Jeremy Lent is the author of the award-winning books, The Patterning Instinct and The Web of Meaning, which offer a foundation for an integrative worldview for a flourishing future.
John J. Prendergast is a retired Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, as well as a retired psychotherapist. He studied with the European sage Jean Klein for many years as well as with Adyashanti.
Find out more »Silent Group Meditation (Free, No Guidance)
Join us for a silent group meditation. Do your own practice quietly in the company of others. Let’s be present, together. .... more details
Mon.: 8:00am – 8:30am (PT) and Wed.: 9:00am – 9:30am (PT)
Ongoing drop-in group – attend as often as you like.
Weekly, with rare exceptions. Verify dates on Full Calendar.
Silent Group Meditation (Free, No Guidance)
Mondays: 8:00am – 8:30am Pacific Time
Wednesdays : 9:00am – 9:30am Pacific Time
Ongoing every week, with rare exceptions. Check Full Calendar to verify dates.
Join for a group meditation – just us, without a teacher. Do your own practice silently in the company of others. There will be no talk or guidance – only a bell to start and finish. Let’s be present, together.
After half an hour of silent sitting, there will be space for a brief hello in the end, if we like.
Please be seated by the time meditation starts, so that we can begin together. You are welcome to have your camera and microphone on (unless you have a lot of background noise), so that we can feel as if we were in one space.
The zoom link remains the same for all the sessions, so you are welcome to register only once and save the link for future reference.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter