November 2018
Mary Reed ~ Harnessing the Power of BEing the Mechanism of Creation
Mary Reed calls the Himalayas her home, but travels the world startling audiences awake with the Divine love conveyed through her profound mystical experiences. In the summer of 2000, she was a busy executive at an NGO in Washington, DC, directing global healthcare programs, when, out of the blue, she started having powerful mystical visions that totally upended her life. After years of self-examination, she now she spends most of the year living in a Tibetan Buddhist nunnery in northern India, returning to the west periodically to inspire joyful collective resurrection with her unique view of our awakening world.
Her work is rooted in 17 years of engagements with Divine Masters — an ability she neither sought nor easily accepted. Mary guides others using only the wisdom gleaned directly from Divine sources, without doctrinal bias or filters. She is the author of the award-winning book, Unwitting Mystic and the subject of a movie currently in development,
Find out more »February 2019
Shakti Caterina Maggi ~ Awakening in Daily Living
Please join us for this special series of events with Italian teacher Shakti Caterina Maggi, beginning with.....
Tues. Feb, 12th, 7:00-8:45 pm ~ Awakening in Daily Living (San Rafael)
See our full calendar for details on following dates
Thur. Feb. 14th, 7:00-8:45 pm ~ Love in Non-Duality (Berkeley)
Sat. Feb. 16th, 11:00 am - 5:00 pm ~ The Way of Perception (Berkeley)
Sun. Feb. 17th, 1:00-5:00 pm ~ The Way of Perception (Sebastopol)
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
Richard Miller ~ Living Enlightenment
Throughout the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s, Richard had the good fortune of meeting a series of spiritual teachers, including Laura Cummings, J. Krishnamurti, Adi Da, Dadaji, Adyashanti, Suzanne Segal, and Jean Klein, who helped him directly realize the nondual teachings, as exemplified in the paths of Advaita, Kashmir Yoga, Taoism, and Dzogchen. Richard now shares this realization, and its integration into daily living, through meditative self-inquiry, the presence of being, and what lies beyond all sense of separation and self-awareness.
Richard is the co-founder of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, co-founder and past president of the Institute for Spirituality and Psychology, and founder of the iRest Institute, where he teaches retreats and trainings internationally, and conducts research on the nondual program he’s developed—iRest Meditation—a synthesis of ancient nondual practices of yogic meditation, studying its efficacy on health, healing, well-being, and awakening.
“Living enlightenment entails no less than a fundamental figure-ground reversal within our psyche, where our center of gravity shifts from identification as a separate ego-I to Essential Nature—the Mystery that has given birth to the entire cosmos—that is simultaneously everything, and no-thing.
“Living enlightenment takes us beyond duality and nonduality, where we recognize there is no condition, state, realization, or accomplishment that is ultimately definitive and final. Here, life is a continuous unfolding, with Essential Nature living us—and everything—as Its what, where, when, how, that, and this of each moment.
“Living enlightenment both exposes our absolute helplessness and insecurity when we live identified as a separate ego-I, and reveals our absolute security and stability when we give ourselves over completely to being lived by the intelligence of Essential Nature. Here, we awaken beyond conflict and suffering to living true compassion, kindness, love, joy, and equanimity, and respect for the preciousness of life and the environment, amidst all the changing circumstances and relationships of our lives.”
Suggested Donation $15-$20
Find out more »March 2019
Pamela Wilson ~ Being with What Is
Pamela Wilson is a Bay Area treasure who has been sharing satsang for twenty years around the world, honoring the sage within everyone, and the absolute oneness of All That Is. Her own teachers included Lester Levinson (The Sedona Method), Robert Adams and Neelam. She evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human.
Pamela is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. And she speaks the truth of non-duality, that the universe is one undivided whole. Featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, and the author of the forthcoming A Golden Retriever’s Guide to Joy, Pamela is at her best in heart-felt dialogue, so please come and bring your questions!
“Here we are, benevolent rooted space wearing a remarkably sensitive instrument called the body. Most sages report the body-mind insists on being included and permeated by presence, so it too, can know and live its naturalness. The body is the five elements, already free with no history, though it has born witness to all. As compassion we will be instantly aware of any suffering and answer its call; as stillness we will be aware of remaining restlessness. To be with what is in the moment, this is our function and is at the heart of all longing.”
John Prendergast ~ The Current of Life
John is a spiritual teacher, psychotherapist and retired adjunct professor of psychology at CIIS known for his pioneering work in integrating nondual wisdom and psychotherapy. A long-time student of both Jean Klein and Adyashanti, he was asked to share the dharma by Dorothy Hunt. John brings a depth of experience, insight, warmth, and compassion to his teaching work, and is especially skillful in guided meditative inquiries and one-on-one dialogues.. He is the author of In Touch (Sounds True, 2015) and a forthcoming new book called The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence (Sounds True, Nov. 2019). He offers quarterly daylong intensives in the Bay Area, and residential retreats and seminars around the U.S.
“As the process of awakening deepens, it typically drops down from the head and begins to penetrate into the depths of the conditioned body-mind. As this happens, the inner felt-sense of the body opens up, lines up, and lights up. The body and by extension the so-called world come alive in a new way. We feel ourselves tapped into a profound current of life that animates everything – people, animals, trees and even rocks. This brings a natural sense of aliveness, wonder, and intimacy. We experience this naturally as small children, taking delight in the smallest discoveries. We can return to this way of experiencing life as adults, this time knowingly, with profound gratitude for the whole of life and for the simplicity of Being.“
Suggested Donation: $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Find out more »
CANCELLED!!!!! Susanne Marie ~ What is Realization?
Beyond descriptions of enlightenment or realization lies the lived experience of what we are in truth, right now. And right Now there is the immediate accessibility to be present, open, and aware. Together we will explore what is the direct experience of being awake: Here and Now.
Bio:
Featured in conversation with Adyashanti on Buddha at the Gas Pump as well as recently on Conscious TV, Susanne Marie offers teachings in support of freedom, sacred mutuality, and the celebration of our common essence of love and unity with all life. Her work is transformational and empowering, as she points to the remembering of That which we have always been, allowing truth to become ever more conscious of itself through a human life.
In a relaxed, empathetic and personable manner, and with deep personal insight, humor, and grace, she helps others deconstruct their beliefs of what living a life of freedom looks like. Susanne, the parent of two young adults, divides her time between Taos, New Mexico, and Northern California, and offers spiritual mentoring as well as Grace Healing Sessions to individuals and groups.
April 2019
Amoda Maa ~ Unbroken Presence
Amoda Maa offers an intimate conversation that includes the totality of the human experience within the unbounded space of unconditioned awareness. The conversation is always spontaneous, allowing jewels of wisdom to arise naturally in support of the journey of awakening and the deepening into living an awakened life.
“What really matters is your willingness to turn towards tenderness in the midst of that which offends you, to stand as openness in the face of brokenness, and to bear the unbearable. This is the path of surrender, and the only way I know to enter the slip-stream of unspeakable grace inside this human experience.”
In 2002, an experience of the dark night of the soul led to Amoda’s profound inner awakening. After a long period of integration, she started speaking from silence. Today, she offers meetings and retreats all around the US, as well as speaking at conferences and on radio shows. She brings to her teachings a depth and breadth of understanding of the human journey, born out of her own immersion in the furnace of personal transformation.
She is the author of several books. Her most recent Embodied Enlightenment (published in 2017) — written 15 years after her awakening — is based on the many conversations at the cutting edge of spiritual inquiry in her meetings with people from all around the world, and addresses many of the questions relevant to today’s seeker. It has been acclaimed as “a beautiful and precious gift to an emerging new humanity” as well as “the best spiritual book since Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth.”
Amoda currently lives with her husband and beloved, Kavi, in California.
To learn more, visit www.amodamaa.com
Suggested donation: $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds
Paul Hedderman ~ Beyond “Selfing”
Paul’s unpretentious, humorous and energetic style of street-level non-duality is honed by his years of involvement with 12-step programs and the recovery community, as well as his background in Zen, Advaita and A Course in Miracles. In colorful and direct language, he points to the many ways we reinforce what he calls “selfing”, urging his listeners to honestly consider the facts of their daily experience, and look beyond the pull of the past and future, and the self-reinforcing self-importance of ego-identity. His direct, uncompromising pointing doesn’t provide a refuge for entrenched conditioning and the sense of separateness, no matter how convincing that experience may be. Paul is the author of The Escape to Everywhere and the subject of the DVD Traveling Lighter.
"We are saddled with the proscribed way of looking called self-centeredness. Everything is perceived as to how it pertains to me. The thing to do is to turn the light on it to see that all there is, is subject; there is no object called me as a subject. There's just subjectivity. That's the truth. Then enlightenment and all these goals become non-goals, because you realize there is nothing to seek.”
Suggested Donation $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Find out more »May 2019
Mary Reed ~ Wise Power: BEing the Mechanism of Creation
After calling the Himalayas her home for seven years, today “accidental mystic” Mary Reed travels the world startling audiences awake with the Divine love conveyed through her profound mystical experiences.
In the summer of 2000, she was a busy executive at an NGO in Washington, DC, directing global healthcare programs, when, out of the blue, she started having powerful mystical visions that totally upended her life. After years of self-examination, many of them spent living in a Tibetan Buddhist nunnery in northern India, she returned to the west to inspire joyful collective resurrection with her unique view of our awakening world.
Her work is rooted in eighteen years of direct engagement with Divine Masters, whom she does not channel but temporarily becomes, experiencing from within their unique forms — an ability she neither sought nor easily accepted. Mary guides others using only the wisdom gleaned directly from Divine sources, without doctrinal bias or filters. Her unfathomable experiences are both an invitation and road map to visceral remembrance of the healing wisdom that is already within us.
Mary is the author of the award-winning book, Unwitting Mystic and the subject of a feature film currently in development called Love, Mary Reed.
“As humanity maneuvers through this magnificent time of “fracturing” in our collective awareness, most of us have become disoriented as the old foundations of normalcy have broken apart. Depending on the day and where our awareness is focused, we’re either elated or alarmed, empowered or enraged, equanimous or trying to remember how to get there. Even the most awakened leaders, teachers, healers, students and everyday folks must navigate the ever-shifting ground upon which we now stand, at times uncomfortably, together.
“From within — and as — Unitive Consciousness, there are powerful perspectives and tools that can help us use what’s happening to create what comes next (or allow to be created). It brings me great joy to share these perspectives and tools with the Open Circle community.”
Suggested donation: $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds
Find out more »Will Pye ~ Radical Gratitude: Appreciating Presence…CANCELLED!!!
After what might now be regarded as nondual realizations as a child, Will Pye experienced years of suffering, depression and a desire to not exist. A wish to end suffering mingled with a deep yearning to know Truth fueled intensive spiritual exploration. Much Zen practice, energy healing, shamanic exploration, yoga, Qi Gong, philosophical study and scientific research led to shifts in perception, including, at age 28, insight into the emptiness of self, and unity of inner and outer. At 31, total surrender to death following a brain cancer diagnosis yielded experience of infinite and eternal being and the perfection unfolding.
Since then Will has left behind a successful business to share presence and explore consciousness with groups in workshops, retreats and Meetings in Love, Truth and Laughter around the world.
Influenced by Zen, Christian Mysticism, Sufism, Quantum Mechanics and Neuroscience Will offers practical wisdom, emphasizing direct experience and revelation, whether via meditation, gratitude, plant spirit medicine, dancing, lovemaking, or listening to a tree dancing with the sun.
Working with groups, Will offers and invites innocence, curiosity and play, and holding several paradoxes. Teaching and learning occur, yet there is no teacher nor teaching. Gathering in exploration of consciousness, being, love, and stillness is unspeakably sacred, yet ─ it being what we already are ─ is a bit of a joke: bowing to impersonal presence, surrendering to the group energy field’s movement, yet appreciating the uniqueness of each individuation of consciousness and the particular shape of their unfolding. Simultaneously water, dewdrop and snowflake, we are already perfect and becoming more.
Join us to explore a way of being Will calls Radical Gratitude. Here every breath, pain, thought, identity and contraction are recognized to be God making Love with Itself as we realize the naturally joyful love of Being.
Will can also be found handing out Love Letters to strangers as part of a hopelessly idealistic global movement of love and awakening, an initiative of the Love and Truth Party: exploring what awakened activism might look like as we celebrate oneness. Will is also the author of the critically acclaimed book, Blessed with a Brain Tumor: Realizing it’s all Gift and Learning to Receive, and the forthcoming The Gratitude Prescription: How to Find Peace of Mind and Joy Wherever You Look, (2019 New Harbinger).
www.loveandtruthparty.org
www.willpye.com
Suggested Donation $15-$25
Find out more »Pamela Wilson ~ Warm Heart, Mountain Stillness
Pamela Wilson is a Bay Area treasure who has been sharing satsang for twenty years around the world, honoring the sage within everyone, and the absolute oneness of All That Is. Her own teachers included Lester Levinson (The Sedona Method), Robert Adams and Neelam. She evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human.
Pamela is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. And she speaks the truth of non-duality, that the universe is one undivided whole. Featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, Pamela is at her best in heart-felt dialogue, so please come and bring your questions!
“Here we are, benevolent rooted space wearing a remarkably sensitive instrument called the body. Most sages report the body-mind insists on being included and permeated by presence, so it too, can know and live its naturalness. The body is the five elements, already free with no history, though it has born witness to all. As compassion we will be instantly aware of any suffering and answer its call; as stillness we will be aware of remaining restlessness. To be with what is in the moment, this is our function and is at the heart of all longing.”
June 2019
Jon Bernie ~ The Unbelievable Happiness of What Is
Jon Bernie, author of Ordinary Freedom and his latest, The Unbelievable Happiness of What Is, is a contemporary spiritual teacher who offers a compassionate, heart-centered approach to awakening. From his early years growing up as an artist and concert violinist, Jon always had a keen, questioning mind. This led him to discover a self-inquiry process that led to a life-changing spiritual awakening at the age of 16. Despite thinking he was on his way to medical school, he ended up becoming a Zen monk. He has four decades of practice and study in the Zen, Theravada Buddhist and Advaita traditions, and was formally asked to teach by Adyashanti in 2002.
Jon’s teaching focuses on returning the attention to the already enlightened state that lies at the core of our human existence. He is also an experienced healer and teacher of somatic embodiment, trained in the Alexander Technique, Zero Balancing, Self Acceptance Training and the Qigong system of Dr. Yu Penxi. Jon works closely with individuals to facilitate awakening and deep emotional healing, and leads classes, intensives and retreats in the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally. He also does intensive, one-on-one work with individuals both in person and by phone or video chat.
“Trying to find happiness is not possible. Why? Because we cannot find what we fundamentally are. So how do we discover and, in a sense, become one with what we fundamentally are? By learning to feel directly “what is” — that is, what’s being experienced in the mind, body and heart — free of judgment, comparison and analysis. Learning to feel directly could also be described as “being one with what is”. This quality of acceptance or compassion is the essence of our shared Heart of Oneness and simultaneously leads to, and already is, the profound vastness of our true and everlasting Happiness.”
Jon Bernie ~ The Unbelievable Happiness of What Is
Jon Bernie, author of Ordinary Freedom and his latest, The Unbelievable Happiness of What Is, is a contemporary spiritual teacher who offers a compassionate, heart-centered approach to awakening.
He has four decades of practice and study in the Zen, Theravada Buddhist and Advaita traditions (with Jean Klein and Robert Adams), and was formally asked to teach by Adyashanti in 2002. Jon’s teaching focuses on returning the attention to the already enlightened state that lies at the core of our human existence. He is also an experienced healer and teacher of somatic embodiment, trained in the Alexander Technique, Zero Balancing, Self Acceptance Training and the Qigong system of Dr. Yu Penxi. Jon works closely with individuals to facilitate awakening and deep emotional healing, and leads classes, intensives and retreats in the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally. He also does intensive, one-on-one work with individuals both in person and by phone or video chat.
Larry Robinson ~ This Precious Jade Teacup Is Already Broken: Participating Joyfully in the Suffering of the World
Larry Robinson is something of a modern-day Renaissance man. Moving easily from the meditation hall to the halls of power, Larry is a Zen practitioner, a published poet, a potter, a retired eco-psychologist, and a former Green Party city councilman and mayor of Sebastopol, known for starting off city council meetings with poetry. He is also the founder and producer of the critically acclaimed Rumi’s Caravan, a performance troupe dedicated to restoring the soul of the world through reviving the oral tradition of ecstatic poetry. Larry has been practicing meditation for 50 years, primarily in the Zen and vipassana traditions, and is a member of the Occidental Laguna Sangha in Sebastopol, a Zen gathering in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi. He also serves on the boards of the Center for Climate Protection and Meridian University.
“We are living through a time of societal and ecological collapse. Many of us are overwhelmed with feelings of grief and helplessness in the face of such enormous loss and suffering. It requires great courage to keep our hearts open at such a time. The Buddhist practices of Brahmaviharas ─ compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy and equanimity ─ offer a pathway to avoiding the twin perils of despair and naive hope while still being fully engaged in the world.”
Larry Robinson ~ This Precious Jade Teacup Is Already Broken: Participating Joyfully in the Suffering of the World
Larry Robinson is something of a modern-day Renaissance man. Moving easily from the meditation hall to the halls of power, Larry is a long-time Zen practitioner, a published poet, a potter, a retired eco-psychologist, and a former Green Party city councilman and mayor of Sebastopol, known for starting off city council meetings with poetry. He is also the founder and producer of the critically acclaimed Rumi’s Caravan, a performance troupe dedicated to restoring the soul of the world through reviving the oral tradition of ecstatic poetry. Larry has been practicing meditation for 50 years, primarily in the Zen and vipassana traditions, and is a member of the Occidental Laguna Sangha in Sebastopol, a Zen gathering in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi.
“We are living through a time of societal and ecological collapse. Many of us are overwhelmed with feelings of grief and helplessness in the face of such enormous loss and suffering. It requires great courage to keep our hearts open at such a time. The Buddhist practices of Brahmaviharas ─ compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy and equanimity ─ offer a pathway to avoiding the twin perils of despair and naive hope while still being fully engaged in the world.”
Find out more »July 2019
Dorothy Hunt ~ Meditation in Action
“Meditation is not simply the art of sitting quietly on a cushion; it is the art of seeing deeply, being fully present and alive. It is the practice of stopping and noticing who or what is here Now: breathing, looking, eating, drinking, talking, touching, thinking, feeling, sensing. What is the single dimension of our being that is intimate, ever-present, and timelessly awake? Meditation in action is about unifying body and mind in the present moment, and living more and more consciously from the deepest truths we may have realized. If we are living our spirituality and not simply thinking about it, we are invited to BE the light of compassionate presence, authenticity, and love in our ordinary daily lives.”
Invited to teach by Adyashanti in 2004, Dorothy Hunt is the spiritual director of Moon Mountain Sangha, and the founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy. She has been a licensed psychotherapist since 1967. Dorothy is the author of Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness, Leaves from Moon Mountain, Only This! She is a contributing author to several books on nondual awareness and psychotherapy as well as a featured spiritual teacher in Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom.
For more information, please visit www.dorothyhunt.org
No one turned away for lack of funds
Find out more »Dorothy Hunt ~ Meditation in Action
“Meditation is not simply the art of sitting quietly on a cushion; it is the art of seeing deeply, being fully present and alive. Meditation in action is about unifying body and mind in the present moment, and living more and more consciously from the deepest truths we may have realized. If we are living our spirituality and not simply thinking about it, we are invited to BE the light of compassionate presence, authenticity, and love in our ordinary daily lives.”
Invited to teach by Adyashanti in 2004, Dorothy Hunt is the spiritual director of Moon Mountain Sangha, and the founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy. Dorothy is the author of Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness, Leaves from Moon Mountain, Only This! She is a contributing author to several books on nondual awareness and psychotherapy as well as a featured spiritual teacher in Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom.
Find out more »Pamela Wilson ~ The Intelligence of the Heart
Pamela Wilson is a Bay Area treasure who has been sharing satsang for twenty years around the world, honoring the sage within everyone, and the absolute oneness of All That Is. Her own teachers included Lester Levinson (The Sedona Method), Robert Adams and Neelam. She evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human.
Pamela is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. And she speaks the truth of non-duality, that the universe is one undivided whole. Featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, Pamela is at her best in heart-felt dialogue, so please come and bring your questions!
“Here we are, benevolent rooted space wearing a remarkably sensitive instrument called the body. Most sages report the body-mind insists on being included and permeated by presence, so it too, can know and live its naturalness. The body is the five elements, already free with no history, though it has born witness to all. As compassion we will be instantly aware of any suffering and answer its call; as stillness we will be aware of remaining restlessness. To be with what is in the moment, this is our function and is at the heart of all longing.”
Pamela Wilson ~ The Intelligence of the Heart
Pamela Wilson is a Bay Area treasure who has been sharing satsang for twenty years around the world, honoring the sage within everyone, and the absolute oneness of All That Is. Her own teachers included Lester Levinson (The Sedona Method), Robert Adams and Neelam. She evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human.
Pamela is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. And she speaks the truth of non-duality, that the universe is one undivided whole. 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 »August 2019
Gail Brenner ~ Suffering is Optional
You’ve had a taste of your true nature as nondual awareness, yet you still find yourself recycling conditioned thought patterns, and getting stuck in the emotions that underlie them. You get triggered and feel scared, sad, angry, or resentful. You’re sometimes overcome by behaviors that seem beyond your control.
This evening will be a safe and supportive intimate group gathering where we untangle the ways we feel separate and discover over and over the infinite peace of our true nature. Gail Brenner, Ph.D. is an eternal student of happiness who blends her experience as a psychologist with a loving presence that invites people into harmony with all of life. She is gifted at meeting our humanness with nondual understanding in ways that are practical and loving. Gail has worked with clients and groups for over 20 years, bringing laser-like clarity to the confusion of common problems, such as reactive emotions, compulsive behaviors, feelings of personal inadequacy, and relationship struggles. She is the author of three books, including The End of Self-Help and her latest, Suffering is Optional.
“Here's some very good news: freedom from unhappiness is possible, and nothing needs to change. You don't need to change your thoughts, process your feelings, learn to relax, or become a better person. The invitation is simply to see things clearly. See clearly through to the essence of what makes you unhappy, and you'll realize that, at the core of your being, there's no conflict, resistance, or separation. You now know peace deeper than you could ever imagine. Shine a laser on every experience that makes you suffer, and you'll always find your true nature, pure being that just is."
Suggested Donation: $15-$25 per person
Find out more »September 2019
Mukti ~ Discover Your True Self
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 offer a mediation and then speak on these compelling topics followed by the opportunity for questions and answers pointing directly to the true nature of Self.
Mukti, whose name is translated as "liberation," is a teacher in the lineage of Adyashanti, her husband. Prior to 1996, when she began studying the nondual, Zen-flavored teachings of Adyashanti, Mukti studied the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda for over 20 years. In her own teachings, Mukti points audiences back to their natural state of wholeness or undivided consciousness. Licensed in acupuncture and certified to teach hatha yoga, Mukti has a love of the whole, in form as well as the formless.
No one turned away for lack of funds
Mukti ~ Discover Your True Self
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 offer a mediation and then speak on these compelling topics followed by the opportunity for questions and answers pointing directly to the true nature of Self.
Mukti, whose name is translated as "liberation," is a teacher in the lineage of Adyashanti, her husband. Prior to 1996, when she began studying the nondual, Zen-flavored teachings of Adyashanti, Mukti studied the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda for over 20 years. In her own teachings, Mukti points audiences back to their natural state of wholeness or undivided consciousness. Licensed in acupuncture and certified to teach hatha yoga, Mukti has a love of the whole, in form as well as the formless.
Find out more »Michael Damian ~ Embracing the Desire for Happiness
"Happiness is not in things. Happiness is in the wholeness of things."
Life is not a meaningless series of experiences happening to no one. For each of us, it feels vitally important that we find real love and happiness, by understanding who we are on both the spiritual and human levels. From the start, this requires that we fully embrace our desire for happiness.
It is inevitable that we will grasp at the wrong things, but as we become established in deep observing, our desires are purified and transformed. Instead of harboring an anxious desire to receive love from outside, we become that very love, in expression.
As we intelligently work with desire, we are also invited to abandon the mistaken quest to lose our sense of self. The real self is conscious presence, and we cannot lose what is infinitely ours. Observing takes us all the way from the most deluded sense of self, and its misguided desires, to the subtle wisdom of consciousness.
From inner listening, the real self arises as direct knowing, deep love and radiant energy. Live here long enough and you become a vital and empowered being, capable of enjoying life in all its forms and seasons.
Michael Damian shares a clear vision of awakening and psychological integration. Arising from a powerful spiritual awakening in 2006, and his practice as a depth psychologist, Michael’s teachings point to the simplicity of knowing our real nature while also mastering our psychology. Michael’s approach is based, in part, on work with A Course in Miracles and his main teacher Barry Long. He is the author of The Art of Freedom: A Guide to Awakening.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Michael Damian ~ Embracing the Desire for Happiness
Life is not a meaningless series of experiences happening to no one. For each of us, it feels vitally important that we find real love and happiness, by understanding who we are on both the spiritual and human levels. From the start, this requires that we fully embrace our desire for happiness.
As we intelligently work with desire, we are also invited to abandon the mistaken quest to lose our sense of self. The real self is conscious presence, and we cannot lose what is infinitely ours. Observing takes us all the way from the most deluded sense of self, and its misguided desires, to the subtle wisdom of consciousness.
Michael Damian shares a clear vision of awakening and psychological integration. Arising from a powerful spiritual awakening in 2006, and his practice as a depth psychologist, Michael’s teachings point to the simplicity of knowing our real nature while also mastering our psychology. Michael’s approach is based, in part, on work with A Course in Miracles and his main teacher Barry Long. He is the author of The Art of Freedom: A Guide to Awakening.
Find out more »October 2019
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 »November 2019
Pamela Wilson ~ Life Living Itself
Pamela Wilson is a Bay Area treasure who has been sharing satsang for twenty years around the world, honoring the sage within everyone, and the absolute oneness of All That Is. Her own teachers included Lester Levinson (The Sedona Method), Robert Adams and Neelam. She evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human.
Pamela is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. And she speaks the truth of non-duality, that the universe is one undivided whole. Featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, Pamela is at her best in heart-felt dialogue, so please come and bring your questions!
“Here we are, benevolent rooted space wearing a remarkably sensitive instrument called the body. Most sages report the body-mind insists on being included and permeated by presence, so it too, can know and live its naturalness. The body is the five elements, already free with no history, though it has born witness to all. As compassion we will be instantly aware of any suffering and answer its call; as stillness we will be aware of remaining restlessness. To be with what is in the moment, this is our function and is at the heart of all longing.”
Pamela Wilson ~ Life Living Itself
Pamela Wilson is a Bay Area treasure who has been sharing satsang for twenty years around the world, honoring the sage within everyone, and the absolute oneness of All That Is. Her own teachers included Lester Levinson (The Sedona Method), Robert Adams and Neelam. She evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human.
Pamela is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. And she speaks the truth of non-duality, that the universe is one undivided whole. 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 »Paul Hedderman ~ Beyond “Selfing”
Paul’s unpretentious, humorous and energetic style of street-level non-duality is honed by his years of involvement with 12-step programs and the recovery community, as well as his background in Zen, Advaita and A Course in Miracles. In colorful and direct language, he points to the many ways we reinforce what he calls “selfing”, urging his listeners to honestly consider the facts of their daily experience, and look beyond the pull of the past and future, and the self-reinforcing self-importance of ego-identity. His direct, uncompromising pointing doesn’t provide a refuge for entrenched conditioning and the sense of separateness, no matter how convincing that experience may be. Paul is the author of The Escape to Everywhere and his latest, On Having Never Left, and the subject of the DVD Traveling Lighter.
"We are saddled with the proscribed way of looking called self-centeredness. Everything is perceived as to how it pertains to me. The thing to do is to turn the light on it to see that all there is, is subject; there is no object called me as a subject. There's just subjectivity. That's the truth. Then enlightenment and all these goals become non-goals, because you realize there is nothing to seek.”
Suggested Donation $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Find out more »December 2019
Richard Miller ~ Resting as Inherent Joy
Why is it that some people flourish through seemingly insurmountable challenges while others struggle with even the smallest of life's difficulties? Is it possible to experience resilient joy and well-being during even our most challenging of times?
Come experience the healing and revitalizing effects of a special iRest Yoga Nidra meditation that is designed to help you recognize, reconnect with, nourish and embody your capacity to experience indestructible joy and well-being as innately present, no matter your circumstances, so that you can ease your way through this holiday season and beyond!
Richard’s teachings are based upon a lifetime of inquiry into the nature of freedom. Following a series of awakenings, all sense of separation fell away while working with his spiritual mentor, Jean Klein. Richard experiences this awakening as always fresh and alive, yet forever opening to itself.
Richard Miller, spiritual teacher, yogic scholar, clinical psychologist, author, and researcher, is the founder and chairman of the iRest Institute, co-founder of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, and a founding president of the Institute for Spirituality and Psychology.
Author of iRest Meditation: Restorative Practices for Health, Healing and Well Being and The iRest Program for Healing PTSD, Richard serves as a consultant researching the meditation protocol he’s developed—iRest Yoga Nidra— studying its efficacy on health, healing and well-being with diverse populations including active-duty soldiers, veterans, survivors of human trafficking, youth, seniors, the homeless and the incarcerated, with issues including sleep disorders, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, pain, and chemical dependency. Richard leads trainings and retreats internationally.
Suggested Donation $15-$25
Find out more »Richard Miller ~ Resting as Inherent Joy
Come experience the healing and revitalizing effects of a special iRest Yoga Nidra meditation that is designed to help you recognize, reconnect with, nourish and embody your capacity to experience indestructible joy and well-being as innately present, no matter your circumstances, so that you can ease your way through this holiday season and beyond!
Richard’s teachings are based upon a lifetime of inquiry into the nature of freedom. Following a series of awakenings, all sense of separation fell away while working with his spiritual mentor, Jean Klein. Richard experiences this awakening as always fresh and alive, yet forever opening to itself.
Richard Miller, spiritual teacher, yogic scholar, clinical psychologist, author, and researcher, is the founder and chairman of the iRest Institute, co-founder of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, and a founding president of the Institute for Spirituality and Psychology.
Find out more »February 2020
John Prendergast ~ The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence
The great human quest is to discover who we really are—a discovery that changes our lives and the lives of those around us. With The Deep Heart, John Prendergast invites you on a pilgrimage within, using the heart as a portal to your deepest psychological and spiritual nature. The Deep Heart is John’s term for the subtle center of emotional and energetic sensitivity, relational intimacy, profound inner knowing, and wholeness found within our hearts.
In this experiential guide, John offers precise and potent meditative inquiries to help you open your heart, see through your core limiting beliefs, and discover the true nature of your being. He brings a depth of experience, insight, warmth, and compassion to his teaching work, and is especially skillful in guided meditative inquiries and one-on-one dialogues.
John J. Prendergast is a spiritual teacher, psychotherapist and retired adjunct professor of psychology at CIIS, known for his pioneering work in integrating nondual wisdom and psychotherapy. A long-time student of both Jean Klein and Adyashanti, he was asked to share the dharma by Dorothy Hunt. He is the author of the forthcoming The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence, as well as In Touch: How to Tune in to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself.
Suggested Donation: $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
John Prendergast ~ The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence
The great human quest is to discover who we really are—a discovery that changes our lives and the lives of those around us. With The Deep Heart, John Prendergast invites you on a pilgrimage within, using the heart as a portal to your deepest psychological and spiritual nature. The Deep Heart is John’s term for the subtle center of emotional and energetic sensitivity, relational intimacy, profound inner knowing, and wholeness found within our hearts.
In this experiential guide, John offers precise and potent meditative inquiries to help you open your heart, see through your core limiting beliefs, and discover the true nature of your being. He brings a depth of experience, insight, warmth, and compassion to his teaching work, and is especially skillful in guided meditative inquiries and one-on-one dialogues.
Find out more »Pamela Wilson ~ The Intelligence of the Heart
Pamela Wilson is a Bay Area treasure who has been sharing satsang for twenty years around the world, honoring the sage within everyone, and the absolute oneness of All That Is. Her own teachers included Lester Levinson (The Sedona Method), Robert Adams and Neelam. She evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human.
Pamela is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. And she speaks the truth of non-duality, that the universe is one undivided whole. Featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, Pamela is at her best in heart-felt dialogue, so please come and bring your questions!
“Here we are, benevolent rooted space wearing a remarkably sensitive instrument called the body. Most sages report the body-mind insists on being included and permeated by presence, so it too, can know and live its naturalness. The body is the five elements, already free with no history, though it has born witness to all. As compassion we will be instantly aware of any suffering and answer its call; as stillness we will be aware of remaining restlessness. To be with what is in the moment, this is our function and is at the heart of all longing.”
Suggested Donation: $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Pamela Wilson ~ The Intelligence of the Heart
Pamela Wilson is a Bay Area treasure who has been sharing satsang for twenty years around the world, honoring the sage within everyone, and the absolute oneness of All That Is. Her own teachers included Lester Levinson (The Sedona Method), Robert Adams and Neelam. She evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human.
Pamela is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. And she speaks the truth of non-duality, that the universe is one undivided whole. 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 »March 2020
Shakti Caterina Maggi ~ The Way of Compassion: How Non-Duality Leads us to be in Peace
True compassion leads to a profound peace with the conflict that we still have with ourselves and the world. It is the blossoming of our non-dual nature into the human form. The satsang will unfold though questions and answers to explore this topic.
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.”
Suggested Donation: $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Shakti Caterina Maggi ~ The Way of Compassion: How Non-Duality Leads us to be in Peace
True compassion leads to a profound peace with the conflict that we still have with ourselves and the world. It is the blossoming of our non-dual nature into the human form. The satsang will unfold though questions and answers to explore this topic. “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.”
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.
Find out more »CANCELLED!!! Gail Brenner ~ Surrender, Devotion, and Trust in the Spiritual Life
Due to an abundance of caution over the increasing spread of the corona virus (COV-19), we have cancelled this event and all other in-person events for the month of March.
We do want to remind you that we do have Online Events on Sunday mornings as well as longer online courses and retreats. These are found on the ONLINE EVENTS page on our website.. And if Sunday morning is not a convenient time to participate, you will be sent a recording after the event if you register, allowing you to watch at any time that is convenient to you. However, to get the recording, you would need to register before the event.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. We do feel a responsibility to our teachers and our community (both the Open Circle community and the broader community) to do our part to keep everyone safe.
Love always,
The Open Circle Team