Full panel discussion at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2011 featuring Jeannie Zandi, Bentinho Massaro, and Kenny Johnson:
Archive for the 'Gatherings/meetings/conferences' Category
Excerpt from panel discussion at Science and Nonduality Conference 2011, f. Jeannie Zandi
October 27, 2011The meta-paradox is that there is paradox and there is no paradox at all. In a video taken by Prema Akasha at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2011, a portion of a panel discussion is shown.
From left to right: Jerry Katz, Jeannie Zandi, Bentinho Massaro, and Kenny Johnson. A panel discussion put together and moderated by Jerry Katz. In this excerpt JK is put on the spot by JZ and re-directs the discussion to where it belongs: with the audience. The panel discussion remained in control of the audience until the end. Prema Akasha emceed.
Click here to view the video. (Sorry, I don’t know how to embed Facebook videos into WordPress.)
My Experience at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2011
October 26, 2011I spent four days at the Science and Nonduality Conference (SAND) in San Rafael, California. Flying back to Nova Scotia on WestJet, the view offers crisp constellations, the northern lights, and rare shooting stars. I don’t know the names of the constellations, and the northern lights are carrying on for so many hours I’ve lost interest. But a shooting star means there’s nothing to forget when there’s only the surprise of the moment.
SAND is a conference of constellations, lights, and shooting stars. That’s the stuff we’re made of. That means SAND is also a community.
When people ask me about the Conference I tell them I’m interested in the sense of community that is generated, because I feel that that is how the teaching of nonduality is honed, made available, and disseminates.
Early in the life of the email forum Nonduality Salon, I guess it was the late 90s, I proposed the concept of the hologuru: the community as guru, teacher, guide, friend, source, muse; container of lights northern, southern, eastern and western.
This, the third SAND, was the best one. It’s hard to pinpoint why it was so good this year. It felt “rounded out” somehow. Peter Fenner used the word “mellow”. It’s one thing to create that feeling with a dozen people, but to generate it with 500 is a different level of achievement.
James Traverse describes it this way: “The blessing of SAND is that there is an endless number of beautiful people to meet and experience and each is a fascinating jewel of Indra’s Net – it was a truly breath-taking privilege to be in the presence of such beauty, integrity, honesty, humility, dedication, truth, joy and uninhibited Love.”
James Traverse is my neighbour and friend. We flew together, both gave talks, and shared cabs and a room. What we didn’t share was the same experience at SAND. If you talked to each of us separately, you might think we attended different gatherings. That speaks to the Conference’s complexity and richness. We agreed we’ll be back next year.
Besides James, I spent quality time with a few other people whom I wish to acknowledge and thank:
Maurizio and Zaya whose love energy drives everything.
Closer-than-close friend, former editor of the Highlights, and main nondual squeeze Christiana Duranczyk.
Long time Nonduality Salon and Advaita Academy contributor Dhanya for bringing me into her fresh and beautiful home in San Rafael and preparing perhaps the best meal I ever ate while bringing me up to date on her travels, adventures, and the world of traditional Vedanta.
My publisher Connie Shaw from Sentient Publications.
Kathy Berndt from our Nova Scotia Nonduality Satsang Meetup group.
Puppetji, whom I met at the elevator and even got mentioned in his appearance.
Chuck Hillig and Jeff Foster.
Author Sam Avery (we sat on the bench outside and smoked cigars together, therefore we are bonded for life).
Prema Akasha (who also did a delightful job emceeing my panel discussion and other sessions. Too bad she doesn’t smoke cigars.)
The people who graciously agreed to appear on my panel: Jeannie Zandi, Bentinho Massaro, and Kenny Johnson. Benjamin Smythe also agreed to participate but he got sick and couldn’t make it.
Rick Archer from Buddha at the Gas Pump.
Rob Schwartz from East Bay Open Circle.
Jonathan Tayler
Jonathan Bricklin
Jonah Mark Bekerman.
Chuck (darn it, last name I can’t remember, but I enjoyed meeting you a couple times).
Nick Day
Robert Waggoner
Scott Kiloby, Peter Fenner, John Prendergast, Unmani, David Loy
East West bookstore, which runs the SAND bookstore with great care and knowledge.
the artist Prasanna.
the volunteers, the technical people.
the small audience that saw my stand-up comedy act on open mic night.
I met lots of other people including several readers of the Highlights: Hi and thank you.
The biggest thanks goes to each one of you who attended my talk on Albert Blackburn and the panel discussion that I put together. Deep bow to each one of you. I also thank those who wanted to attend but could not due to conflicts as there were several concurrent talks and other obligations people had.
I also want to thank the young people I talked to, the college and high school kids. I’d love to see a big gang of young people next year. They’d have a ball and add a whole different kind of energy to the conference.
I saw many talks and loved to see the interest and passion of the speakers. I can’t say one stands out over the others as I appreciated each speaker for what he or she offered.
There’s so much I didn’t do and so much I didn’t see and so many people I didn’t talk to that it’s ridiculous. However, I have always felt that abundance is its own message. There should be even greater abundance, like a city that cannot be fully explored in many lifetimes because there is so much happening and change constantly happening.
Also at my age I tend to forget, so if we had a conversation and I forgot to mention you, please remind me so that I can acknowledge you. Fact is, with some people you connect with their eyes and spirit and not their name tag and there were many people I met in that category and you know who you are.
The SAND is as intriguing as the northern lights, as eternally wondrous as constellations, and as rare and startling as a shooting star.
In the next entry I’m going to publish James Traverse’s impassioned description of the Conference. I’ll gladly publish notes on your experience if you’ll send it to me.
Last note: SAND Europe is happening at the end of May 2012 in Amsterdam. I’ll post details as I receive them.
Thank you for your interest.
-Jerry Katz
Retreat with Jeff Foster near San Francisco
August 5, 2011
Freedom In Every Experience
Being open to life, no matter what happens.
RETREAT WITH JEFF FOSTER
Monday, October 31st – Saturday, November 5th, 2011
Venue: EarthRise retreat center at IONS. EarthRise at IONS is located approximately 26 miles north of San Francisco.
We spend our lives seeking wealth, love, success, approval, and even ‘spiritual enlightenment’ in the future. Yet right at the heart of life there is an intimacy, a simplicity, a vast spaciousness that is totally beyond words – and which cannot be reached through any effort of ours. In our exhausting attempts to change, to improve ourselves, to become ‘perfect’ or ‘enlightened’, or perfectly enlightened, we end up ignoring this wordless intimacy which exists here and now – an intimacy which is really our true home, and the end of our seeking.
Jeff Foster, in books and public meetings, shares the timeless message of nonduality (wholeness, non-separation, completeness), something that is ultimately impossible to put into words. He talks in a simple, human, accessible, and down-to-earth way, gently pointing us back to the miracle and wonder of life as it is, and to the freedom, ease and love available in the midst of every experience – even the most painful ones.
In this workshop we will share, discuss and explore the nature of our experience. With Jeff’s gentle and loving guidance we will be pointed back to life as it is, to the timeless present moment, and to the vast spaciousness which holds all experience as it comes and goes. As we dive deeper into this communication, and shine light upon the various seeking activities of the mind, what may be revealed is a peace that passes all understanding, and a fresh discovery of who you really are.
Silence, laughter, lightness, and a sense of real intimacy, honesty and friendship are the hallmarks of encounters with Jeff. His meetings are always informal and spontaneous, and there are plenty of opportunities to ask questions, if questions arise for you. And of course, if you just want to sit in silence and listen, that’s fine too.
We try so hard to be open to life, only to come to realise that in the end, who we really are is Being itself, already fully open to life. As Jeff reminds us, perhaps life is infinitely simpler than we ever imagined..
LOGISTICS AND VENUE
Location: Earthrise retreat center at IONS – http://www.noetic.org/earthrise/
Dates: October 31st – November 5th, 2011
The retreat will begin on Monday around 3 pm and end after lunch on Saturday. There will be three meetings per day, 1 to 1.5 hours each, from 10.30am – 12.30pm, then 4pm-5.30pm and then from around 8.30pm – 9.30pm. The rooms need to be cleared by 11am on Saturday. Three meals a day are included in the prices below starting with dinner on Monday and closing with lunch on Saturday:
$ 1240 in a single room including 5 breakfasts, 6 lunches and 5 dinners
$ 1140 in a double room including 5 breakfasts, 6 lunches and 5 dinners
$ 645 without accomodation (includes 6 Lunches) Breakfast and dinners can be can be bought a la carte on site.
REGISTER FOR THE RETREAT
All the meals are created with local organic ingredients – fruits, vegetables, free range poultry, hormone-free meat and dairy products, and extraordinary cheeses.
EarthRise retreat center is located 45 minutes north of San francisco and is housed on 200 acres of beautiful rolling hills where hiking trails meander through pristine native live oak woodlands, and the surrounding open space offers panoramic vistas of the California landscape.
CANCELLATION POLICY:
up to 8 weeks before workshop….100% of registration fee returned
4 weeks before workshop…50% of registration fee returned
1 week before workshop…25% of registration fee returned
Jeff Foster
Jeff Foster graduated in Astrophysics from Cambridge University in 2001. Several years after graduation, following a period of severe depression and illness, he became addicted to the idea of ‘spiritual enlightenment’, and embarked on an intensive spiritual search which lasted for several years. The spiritual search came to an absolute end with the clear recognition of the nondual nature of everything. In the clarity of this seeing, life became what it always was: spontaneous, open, joyful and fully alive.
Jeff presently holds meetings and retreats in the UK and Europe, clearly and directly pointing to the frustrations surrounding our seeking activities, to the nature of thought, and to the clarity at the heart of everything. His uncompromising approach, full of humour and compassion, shatters the mind’s hopes for a future salvation, revealing the unconditional freedom and ease that is always already present and available, right in the midst of the human drama. www.lifewithoutacentre.com.
Thanks to Gary Nixon for Paradoxica (Nonduality) Conference 2011
June 23, 2011Last week I had the honour of attending and speaking at the 2011 Paradoxica Nondual Psychology Conference held at the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, which is a 3 hour drive south of Calgary. Lethbridge is a city of about 86,000 people.
Lethbridge, Alberta, is a hotbed of nondual teaching, study, and training conceived and run by Dr. Gary Nixon, a firey, passionate, self-realized visionary. Gary is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences and head of the Addictions Counseling program.
I spoke to several of his students and former students who are now counselors and they speak with gratitude about having discovered and studied with Gary. He’s the kind of guy you’re either going to love or not want to deal with. He doesn’t mess around. He promotes the work of Jed McKenna, among others, and if there is a flesh and blood Jed it may as well be Gary.
The Conference was well organized, stayed on schedule, and no glitches were noted. All the speakers showed up and each one delivered something different and truly powerful. Gary himself is a dynamic speaker. Why he hasn’t appeared at the Science and Nonduality Conferences, I don’t know. Certainly that will change. For one thing, I guess, he’s very busy as an academic, teaching, doing research, publishing a journal, planning a yearly conference, counseling, and training graduate students.
The day after the conference I was privileged to sit in on a group counseling session with Gary and about 15 of his students, former students, and couple of outsiders who were speakers at the conference. There was a lot of vulnerability which allowed for deepened connections between people.
What’s happening in Lethbridge is the training of nondual psychologists. They, in turn, are spreading the knowledge of nonduality. I was very pleased to be part of this conference. I hope to return. Thanks to Gary Nixon for inviting me and to his students, former students, and other conference attendees for their gracious attention and interest.
-Jerry Katz
Attend the Paradoxica Nondual Psychology Conference, June 16-17, 2011
May 19, 20112011 Paradoxica Nondual Psychology Conference
June 16 & 17
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge, Alberta, CANADA
…Join Jerry Katz, Scott Kiloby Karen McPhee for experiential workshops as well as Will Joel Friedman, Trent Leighton, Brian Theriault, and Gary Nixon. Honore France & Carmen Rodriquez will also be doing a special presentation on First Nations awakening.
Meetings and Retreats with Rupert Spira in US – February 2011
November 25, 2010Meetings and Retreats with Rupert Spira in US – February 2011
2nd &3rd February 2011 – Evening Meetings in Boulder/Denver Area, Colorado
6th to 11th February 2011 – Five Day Residential Retreat in Santa Barbara
12th & 13th February 2011 – Weekend Intensive in Boulder, Colorado
A Report from the Science and Nonduality Conference 2010
October 27, 2010I spent four days at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2010 (SAND). You have no idea how good that feels when three people in one day tell you — in person — how much they love the Nonduality Highlights. It’s surreal because all our nonduality work in online. Thank you to those who took the time to express appreciation for the Highlights and to those who stopped to talk about other things. I value the presence of everyone. Please look me up at next year’s conference and stop to talk.
Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo pulled it together again. There was a great diversity of speakers and topics: Jeff Foster (a nice guy whose hair and wife I hope to steal some day), Scott Kiloby (so generous with his time), Rupert Spira (a man whose charm and talent are surpassed by only two people: his wife Ellen and mother Meriel, who were both present), Francis Lucille, Adyashanti, Robert Lanza, Larry Dossey, Drew Dellinger, Nassim Haramein.
Jay Michaelson (named by Forward as one of the 50 most influential Jews in America; I was named number 51, having just missed the cut. In any case, between the two us we couldn’t get the guy at the raw food concession to give us extra salsa, so to heck with being influential), Stanley Sobottka (who revealed for the first time in public his spiritual “story”), Peter Fenner (another guy with a beautiful wife; what’s that all about? I asked his wife if Peter uses his tremendous deconstructive skills to get out of doing the dishes. She said no.)
Zoran Josipovic, Peter Russell, Peter Baumann, A.H. Almaas, Puppetji (who is a youngish, good looking, funny guy), Jerry Katz (who is old, blah looking, and not funny), Jonathan Bricklin (the William James expert who has a cousin who once built a car in New Brunswick, Canada), Sheikha Ayshegul Ashki (who gave a stunning talk on Sufism seen by only a handful. What a woman. Look her up.)
Florian Schlosser, Prema Akasha (a cool woman, a fine performer, and creative director for Adyashanti.), Natalie Geld (see, I remembered you!), Ravi Ravindra (a world teacher who lives here in Halifax, Nova Scotia), Stephen LaBerge (the lucid dreaming guy; he was good), Chuck Hillig (long time partner in nondual crime and brilliant explicator of the nondual; fun sitting with Chuck and chatting; Chuck’s one of my peep).
Kenneth D. Johnson (a former bank robber and pimp sentenced to forty years in jail and awakened by Gangaji following initial contact with a supportive prison guard; Kenny received a standing ovation; great speaker.), Loibon Le Baaba (a man who has been initiated into 16 Shamanic traditions and who wears gigantic piercings, traditional clothing and goes barefoot; a man whose love fills the conference venue).
I also want to mention James Hebert whose film Awakening Itself was shown as the last event of the conference. It was very well received. After I send this email, I’ll think of other people, like Jon Bernie, who drives a hell of a Porsche, Peter Dziuban, Pamela Wilson, who is so entrancing I just wanted to sit there and watch her all day; primarily though she’s one heck of a smart nondualist. And Tami Simon who owns a small publishing company called Sounds True. What a gang! Add several hundred attendees who are just as interesting, and you have a rare gathering in which anything could happen. Oh yeah, Mark Scorelle who we’re always ripping off for Highlights material. It was great meeting you, Mark. And here I thought you were just a name in Gloria’s Highlights. Also Kurt Schmidt, David Kindschi, Sam Saddigh, John Troy and Trip. I can’t remember everyone. And of course Patrick Manigault.
Many attendees were very, very pleased with their experience. Some wanted a better organized experience. What is needed, it has become clear, is better organization, along with an orientation to the conference. The buzz is that the organization of next year’s SAND will be different. Details are being worked on right now.
Oh, I didn’t mention the experiential rooms, the music, the entertainment, the films, the raw food concession, the tea nooks where anyone could sit and enjoy free tea from a local tea shop. Those were teas rich, thick, and hearty. Or Prema Akasha’s mandala to which anyone could add a line, a squiggle, a circle, etc., until a beautiful mandala emerged, little by little. What did I forget?
There were many others. I haven’t mentioned everyone I met and spoke to, so I’m sorry if I missed you. Be assured that you made my day, every day. Again, thanks to Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo for putting together the conference. They are all about the love.
Go to http://scienceandnonduality.com for more info.
–Jerry Katz
Here are excerpts from Rupert Spira’s talk at the SAND 2010:
All we know is experience. Check that that is true for you. Have you ever known, do you know, or could you know anything other than experience? And whatever it is that knows experience intimately, utterly, pervades all experience equally. No part of experience is further from or closer to myself, whatever my self is, than any other part. In fact we don’t really know experience, we just know experiencing. And if we stay close to experiencing, we never find a separate self, object, other, or entity. We just find the pure intimacy of experiencing. There is no inside of experiencing, there is no outside of experiencing. … All experience takes place now. Check that for yourself. Can you move just a second away from now? … The past and the future are never experiences, they are concepts. That is, time is never an experience. Now is not a moment in time but is truly timeless or eternal. Experience takes place here. … Try to move just one millimeter away from here. … All experience is here. We never experience distance or space. … This locationless dimension which has no finite qualities (is) called here. … It is known by all of us. It is what we refer to when we speak of love. Love is absolute intimacy, immediacy, innocense of experience. It is not just the condition of our relationship with one or two special friends. It is the name we give to the fundamental condition of all experience. … The moon is only ever the sight of the moon. The sight of the moon is made only of seeing, as seeing takes place here, not there. The American poet e.e. cummings tried to describe this in this poem:
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
So how is it that this absolute intimacy of experience, the lack of any distance, otherness, separation, or objectness of experience, which is the fundamental quality of all experience, how is it that it sometimes seems to be missing? … How does thought veil love? …
…
The separate entity never finds love; it dissolves, or dies, in love. This is in fact the only thing the separate entity ever truly seeks: it’s own death or disappearance. When the mind re-emerges again after this timeless experience of love about which it knows nothing, it recreates again the separate self in here and the separate other out there. And as we all know, before long the experience of love seems to be lost again, so again we go out in search of an object or an other that will deliver the experience of love.
Meetings in New York with Rupert Spira in July 2010
July 9, 2010
The Essential Nature of Peace, Happiness and Love
Meetings in New York with Rupert Spira in July 2010
Schedule and costs:
Thursday July 15 – 7.30 to 9.30 pm $15
Friday July 16 – 7.30 to 9.30 pm $15
Saturday/Sunday July 17/18 – 11 am-12.30 pm & 2-5.30 pm $150
Booking online for all events is advisable in advance although payment may be made on the door if space permits. Click here for online booking.
Location:
One Spirit Learning Alliance, 330 West 38th St, Suite 1500,
New York, NY 10018 (Between 8th and 9th on W 38th St )
Rupert Spira:
Peace, happiness and love are simply the names we give to the knowing of our own Being as it truly is.
Normally we imagine that our essential Being is a little, vulnerable, conscious entity located inside the body. As such, it is believed to have been born, to exist in time and space, to be subjected to and dependent upon the changes of the body and to be destined to disappear and die when the body dies.
However, if we look clearly and simply at this conscious Being that we intimately and directly know ourselves to be, we find that it has no inherent limitation or location. This experiential understanding may not be formulated in terms such as these but it is well known by all as the experience of peace, happiness and love.
The belief and subsequent feeling that our most intimate Being is limited and located within the body or mind veils the peace, happiness and love that are inherent within it and initiates a search in the realm of objects, activities, substances and relationships, in an attempt to recover the original ease of Being for which we long.
At some point and usually as a result of the inevitable failure of this search, we begin to question the very one who is unhappy and in search, and discover that it cannot be found as a separate, limited entity. Instead we find the intimacy of our own impersonal, unlocated Being and with this discovery the peace, happiness and love that are inherent in the simple knowing of Being, are restored.
And what is it that finds this? Being or Presence is itself all that is present in this recognition, to be able to ‘know’ itself. That is, it finds itself. Presence recognises itself.
In time and as a result of this recognition, the mind, the body and even the world become permeated with the peace, happiness and love that have been discovered in the core of our Being, and all our activities and relationships in the world are subsequently realigned with it. These activities and relationships do not cease as a result of this understanding. In fact, they flourish. However, they now become the means whereby we express, share and celebrate our true nature of peace, happiness and love, rather than a means of securing it.
In our meetings we simply take our stand knowingly as Presence itself and explore the beliefs and feelings that suggest that we are anything less than this absolute freedom and love itself.
Author of The Transparency of Things, Rupert leads meetings and retreats worldwide. Please see his website for further details: http://non-duality.rupertspira.com
What Is Nonduality? Responses from the Science and Nonduality Conference 2009. Part Three.
March 16, 2010
3-DVD set, 21 interviews, 600 minutes
The following are excerpts from responses to the question, What is nonduality? They are found on Volume 3 of the DVD set:
What Is Nonduality?
Peter Russell, Author, Philosopher:
Nonduality … means the universe is not dual, there is one common essence to the universe. … Science is nondual. It’s basic philosophy is that there is a unified field, a oneness which we are approaching. In spiritual circles … the nonduality is where the essence is awareness … consciousness … a different sort of nonduality … both of them see the fundamental nature of things, the oneness behind everything.
Thomas Ray, Professor of Zoology and Computer Science, University of Oklahoma:
Nonduality involves absence of self or sense of self and the feeling of oneness or unity with everything, with the universe. I’ve believed that nonduality is just the plain truth. The universe is one thing and we’re all part of the universe and that it isn’t nonduality that needs explanation, it’s duality that needs explanation. In fact, there is a mental organ that produces duality, just one. Without the activity of that mental organ, we would experience nonduality as the normal state.
Shaikh Kabir Helminski, Author, Sufi teacher:
The way we see it in the Sufi tradition is that — particularly for mystic consciousness — we understand that everything is rooted in the divine. Everything is unified in a field of oneness. Practically speaking what that means is that my consciousness, my love, my will, my generosity if I have any, my capacity for forgiveness, all of these have their attributes in the source of the divine. … This nonduality has a kind of quality to it … that is deeply personal as well as cosmic and impersonal because we realize the human being is the ripened fruit of that nonduality. The nonduality doesn’t cancel our human individuality. … We don’t make a big deal about nonduality because we know and trust that everything comes from God. The God that we’re talking about is subtle and integral to this whole creation. … Poetry suggests it. We communicate more through poetry than through abstract theory.
John Prendergast, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology, CIIS
Nonduality, for me, points to the basic absence of difference between self and other, between subject and object, between perceiver and perceived. When the Buddha said form is emptiness and emptiness is form, this is statement of nondual perception. When nothing looks out and sees that it’s everything, this is the experience of nonduality. The apparent division between self and other is seen through. … The reality of the seamless wholeness nature of reality reveals itself. … It’s a deep understanding and knowing that there is essentially no separation.
Olga Louchakova, Director, Neurophenomenology Research Center, ITP Prof.:
Nonduality is the certain perspective on self and consciousness which makes one to experience being and consciousness as undivided and nonseparate from every other consciousness which can be perceived initially as different. It’s the experience of consciousness as being undivided, experience of your own being as being connected with the rest of the universe, and being one with the rest of the universe even though you may not have the perception of the whole universe at the moment. Most importantly, the experience of nonduality is the experience of authenticity, of authentic, unlimited, nonconstricted being, experience of being yourself, experience of living life with no fear.
Tim Freke, Scholar, Author, Stand up Philosopher:
My experience is that fundamentally reality is characterized by polarity. For me it’s not nondual or dual. It’s both at the same time. … Polarity is opposites, but they can only exist together. … They’re two and one at the same time. The paradox of our predicament is that it’s two and one at the same time. I see no reason to prejudice one over the other. In fact, I see a necessity to be conscious of both. What I’ve looked for is an image that can capture that experience. For me the image is lucid living, which is a state comparable to lucid dreaming, only now. … On the one hand I am Tim … I’m actually so individual that I inhabit this unique point in space and time and no one else can or ever will inhabit it. Then there’s the discovery of this deeper nature, the subject itself, not the object, the “I”, that which is witnessing this, and if I go deeply into that now it is a vast spaciousness in which all this is arising just like in a dream. And those two exist together, so “here” it’s all one, “here” it’s all separate. Which is true? They’re both true.
