Embodied Awareness

Years of feedback from participants have shown clearly that this retreat is well adapted to suit both beginners and experienced practitioners.

The first few days will start slowly, and if you have quite a bit of sitting/retreat experience you will find this to be a gentle warm up and lead into longer sitting. You will also likely find that the attitude towards and theoretical aspects of the practice of meditation to be quite fresh and very profound. While the retreat embraces the visions of classical yoga, Advaita Vendanta and early Buddhism within it’s philosophical framework, our approach to practice draws heavily on the tantric traditions, in which an incredibly all-embracing and embodied approach to spiritual practice is emphasized. For experienced meditators this comes as a very welcome, complimentary and sometimes evolutionary deepening to their practice.

We start the retreat at a very beginner friendly level. We start with shorter sittings and build up over the first couple of days, we have found that even the most restless of people are able to adapt to the sitting practice after about 3 days and that many/most of the beginners that come for retreats both appreciate this graduated approach to learning to sit, and are surprised that within a few days they can sit for an hour without struggle.

We have also found that our approach to teaching meditation, which is quite practical with guidance offered during the first 10-15 minutes of each practice sessions before we transition to simple silent sitting together, plus our emphasis on an attitude of acceptance and simplicity during meditation both make great conditions for learning, even if you have never sat before.

Generally speaking, meditative, contemplative and spiritual practices can be incredibly beneficial for psychological health, stability, well being etc. This is especially true when those practices and teachings are body oriented and encompassing of a life guided by a genuine spiritual search and longing while living a well adjusted life in society, including making money, having relationships, jobs, projects, families etc. The teachings and practices of this retreat fit 100% in that category of spiritual teachings and practice. (This is certainly not always the case as many approaches in spirituality directly emphasise or are drawn from a cultural context in which genuine spirituality is seen as something incompatible with such a lifestyle. In such cases the practices and teachings may be entirely unhelpful, even damaging to someone seeking to heal deep traumas and psychological disorders).

If you are passing through a difficult moment in life, like a loss, breakup or major change in life direction and circumstance, or if you have a history of trauma or psychological disorder that is well managed through therapy and previous personal development work, we know from experience that this retreat can be massively beneficial.

Having said this, this retreat is not specifically designed to address people or situations of extreme psychological need. While everyone is welcome here, regardless of background and psychological state, if you are actively seeking to heal from traumatic life events or seeking alternative forms of treatment for diagnosed psychological disorders (such as bipolar, schizophrenia etc.) we would not recommend you attending this retreat.

The reasoning behind this is that while we can help (Sasha is a licensed and practising psychotherapist and we both have years of experience working with people in quite extreme situations), in the context of this retreat (which is silent and by definition avoids direct personal contact and interaction between participants and/or facilitators) we are not able to provide the specific 1:1 support that is required in such delicate situations.

We encourage people not to believe any of the things that we say or teachings that we share, but instead to explore the practices with dedication and to find out for themselves what is experientially. This is also what is recommended by the tradition itself. It is not necessary to accept any new beliefs, to take initiation into any tradition, to deny your connection with any other tradition or religion in order to explore the experience of your own existence and to arrive to experiential understandings of who you are and what your place in this life is.

We align the content of our retreat mostly with the teachings of the tradition of Non-dual Shaivist Tantra. However we use those teachings and perspective solely to give context and understanding to the practices. the practices themselves are what touch people and trigger transformative experiences and those practices are universal, regardless of what you believe.

The primary focus of the retreat is the exploration of the experience of being one's self. This exploration is carried out using specific meditative techniques that are effective regardless of belief systems. The main requirement is a mind that is curious and open to explore. A highly skeptical and doubting person, while absolutely welcome, and absolutely invited to challenge the ideas presented, may find that their experience is limited, if they are unwilling to open to something new.

The practices are supported by practical, philosophical reasoning and teachings. As much as possible the teachings are explained in ways that make them directly relatable to the every day experiences we have of being alive in this body and require no adaptation of new beliefs.