Please join us Sunday, February 26th at 10:00 AM Pacific, for a conversation entitled Awakening Joy: Developing Your Natural Capacity for Well-Being and Happiness with James Baraz.  

The Buddha was called “the Happy One” and told his followers to aim for the highest happiness. Often, however, there is so much emphasis on coming to terms with suffering that his message about the importance of joy and well-being as a central aspect of spiritual practice is lost.

James and Terry will discuss the importance of joy in one’s spiritual life and explore some of the themes from his popular 10-month Awakening Joy Course to develop our natural capacity for well-being and happiness. Presenting Buddhist principles and other supportive strategies in a user-friendly way, Awakening Joy focuses on three core principles that incline the mind towards joy:

• Intentionally inviting and cultivating wholesome states that lead to true happiness

• Being very present to the gladness that accompanies these states

• Inclining the mind consistently over time to shifting the default setting toward greater well-being, happiness, and joy.

The implications are not just subjective; happiness is key to objective results too. Joy enhances not just our own mood but also our practical productivity, including our ability to compassionately alleviate others’ suffering.

About James Baraz:

James Baraz is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, teaching meditation retreats, classes and workshops in the US and abroad since 1980. He serves on the International Advisory Board of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. His online Awakening Joy course (www.awakeningjoy.info) has now graduated over 10,000 participants and has been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, Yoga Journal, Tricycle and the Huffington Post. He is co-author of Awakening Joy: 10 Steps That Will Put You on the Road to Real Happiness with Shoshana Alexander. James lives with his wife in the Bay Area, has two sons and three grandchildren.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

Sunday, February 26th @ 10:00 AM Pacific,

Please Note: There will be a limited number of lines available on the live conference call, so we encourage you to listen online if possible. To make sure you can get through by phone, we encourage you to dial in early.

Join the Dialogue: About one hour into the dialogue, we’ll open up the lines and you’ll have the opportunity to interact with us directly over the phone or via instant message. Here’s what to do:

To interact live by voice, dial into the conference line number and wait until we ask for a question from someone in your region, or

Send us your question via instant message in the teleseminar window on your computer

Send us your questions and comments before or during the live dialogue by posting them on our Beyond Awakening Community Facebook page

We look forward to your attendance!

Sincerely,
The Beyond Awakening Team

Please join us this Sunday, February 12th at 10:00 AM Pacific, for a conversation at the leading edge with John Hagelin, PhD.  

John Hagelin is a physicist, educator, author, and large-scale activist — a truly remarkable “Renaissance man.”

His work has demonstrated that since our perception and behavior is a direct reflection of our consciousness, any attempt to improve human behavior or transform society can only succeed if it addresses the fundamental issue of consciousness.

And cutting-edge neuroscientific research reveals clear-cut evidence for “higher states of consciousness” with vastly expanded mental capabilities and enhanced powers. Physiologically well-documented higher states include the temporary experience of Samadhi—Pure Consciousness—the unbounded, universal, transcendental Self. They also include the permanently stabilized experience of Samadhi—together with waking, sleeping and dreaming experience—known as Nirvikalpa Samadhi, Liberation, or Nirvana.

He describes how our new understanding of higher states of consciousness—and their ready accessibility—radically changes our understanding of the limits of human potential. It has far-reaching implications for the transformation of society—for solving intractable problems in the field of education; reducing crime, terrorism and war; and promoting social harmony and world peace.

Dr. Hagelin is a leading researcher and educator who has brought the practice of meditation to half a million at-risk children and has helped conduct a body of research that demonstrates the powerful effects of group meditation practice on reducing social violence, crime, war, and terrorism and promoting societal peace.

In our conversation he will bring together cutting-edge discoveries in quantum physics and neuroscience to forge a new understanding of consciousness and the physical universe—mind and matter—revealing a startling connection between our inner and outer realities.

About John Hagelin:

John Hagelin, Ph.D., is a world-renowned quantum physicist, educator, author, and President of the Global Union of Scientists for Peace. He has conducted pioneering research at CERN (the European Center for Particle Physics) and SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center). He is responsible for the development of a highly successful grand unified field theory based on the superstring—a theory that was featured in a cover story of Discover magazine.

In addition, Dr. Hagelin has spent much of the past quarter century leading a scientific investigation into the foundations of human consciousness. He is one of the world’s pre-eminent researchers on the effects of meditation on brain development, and the use of collective meditation to defuse societal stress and to reduce crime and social violence.

In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Dr. Hagelin was named winner of the prestigious Kilby Award, which recognizes scientists who have made “major contributions to society through their applied research in the fields of science and technology.” The award recognized Dr. Hagelin as “a scientist in the tradition of Einstein, Jeans, Bohr and Eddington.”

Dr. Hagelin has appeared many times on ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s Meet the Press, CNN’s Larry King Live! and many others. He has been regularly featured in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and most other major metropolitan newspapers.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

Sunday, February 12th @ 10:00 AM Pacific,

Please Note: There will be a limited number of lines available on the live conference call, so we encourage you to listen online if possible. To make sure you can get through by phone, we encourage you to dial in early.

Join the Dialogue: About one hour into the dialogue, we’ll open up the lines and you’ll have the opportunity to interact with us directly over the phone or via instant message. Here’s what to do:

To interact live by voice, dial into the conference line number and wait until we ask for a question from someone in your region, or

Send us your question via instant message in the teleseminar window on your computer

Send us your questions and comments before or during the live dialogue by posting them on our Beyond Awakening Community Facebook page

We look forward to your attendance!

Sincerely,
The Beyond Awakening Team

Please join us this Monday, February 6th at 5:30 PM Pacific, for a special Beyond Awakening live broadcast with Jean Houston, one of the foremost visionary women of our time, and one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement.  

Jean and I both have observed that this is a uniquely challenging and creative time for many of our friends and students. Accordingly we both feel called to explore the Hero’s Journey that is often unfolding unseen, in the midst of the process of people’s everyday lives, moment-to-moment. When people connect with this, they also clarify something about their life’s purpose and personal destiny, not just as some glorious possibility in the future, but as a tangible reality that is always “right here, right now.”

That’s why we’re entitling this conversation, “Every Day Life as a Heroic Journey“.

Join me for this conversation with the wise and vibrant Jean Houston. Jean exemplifies the embodiment of a deep living engagement with the physical, mental, and emotional, worlds, the kind of awakeness it takes to live a heroic life. We will engage in this field of heightened awareness to bring the heroic back from far away times and places, imbuing the present moment with myth, and opening us to the kind of every day heroism that is necessary for every one of us if we, as a species, are going to evolve.

About Jean Houston:

Dr. Jean Houston, scholar, philosopher and researcher in human capacities, is one of the foremost visionary women of our time and one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement. A powerful and dynamic speaker, she holds conferences and seminars with social leaders, educational institutions and business organizations worldwide.

In 1965, along with her husband Dr. Robert Masters, Dr. Houston founded The Foundation for Mind Research. She is also the founder and principal teacher since 1982 of the Mystery School, a school of human development dedicated to teaching history, philosophy, the New Physics, psychology, anthropology, myth and the many dimensions of human potential.

She is a prolific writer and author of 26 books including A Passion for the Possible, Search for the Beloved, Life Force, The Possible Human, and Manual of the Peacemaker.

Dr. Houston holds a B.A. from Barnard College, a Ph.D. in psychology from the Union Graduate School and a PhD in religion from the Graduate Theological Foundation. She has also been the recipient of honorary doctorates.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

Monday, February 6th @ 5:30pm Pacific,

Please Note: There will be a limited number of lines available on the live conference call, so we encourage you to listen online if possible. To make sure you can get through by phone, we encourage you to dial in early.

Join the Dialogue: About one hour into the dialogue, we’ll open up the lines and you’ll have the opportunity to interact with us directly over the phone or via instant message. Here’s what to do:

To interact live by voice, dial into the conference line number and wait until we ask for a question from someone in your region, or

Send us your question via instant message in the teleseminar window on your computer

Send us your questions and comments before or during the live dialogue by posting them on our Beyond Awakening Community Facebook page

We look forward to your attendance!

Sincerely,
The Beyond Awakening Team

About Saniel Bonder

We look forward to your attendance!

Sincerely,
The Beyond Awakening Team

Charles Eisenstein is a social and spiritual visionary, one who sees a possibility for a very different kind of society, one based on love, on what he calls “Sacred Economics.” According to him,

“Economic logic says that ‘more for you is less for me.’ But lovers know that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Your sense of self expands to include other beings.

“Every species has an important gift to give to the ecosystem. And the same is true for each person—each of us has a necessary and important gift to give.  We’ve thought that it’s crazy to live according to what we want to give. But we are here to give – and more and more people are waking up to that truth, and to the fact that the other way isn’t working anyway. The more reinforcement we have from the people around us that this isn’t crazy, the more our minds no longer have to fight the logic of our hearts that wants us to be of service. The shift of consciousness that inspires such things is possible now, and universally potential in everybody, the 99% and 1%.

“That’s a different kind of revolution. There is no “other” in this revolution. Everybody has a unique calling and it’s time to listen carefully to that. That’s what the future is going to be. It’s time to get ready for it and contribute to it and make it happen.”

Terry and Charles will explore not just the inspiring possibilities for human society but also how we can work to meet our fear courageously as we open into the turbulence that may be involved in making the transition.

About Charles Eisenstein

Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, speaker, sacred activist, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, human cultural evolution, and the power of story to enable us to transition to a new phase of our civilization. He blogs regularly at Reality Sandwich, teaches at Godard College, and is the author of The Ascent of Humanity and Sacred Economics. A video based on his visionary statement of the credo for the Occupy movement, The Revolution Is Love has recently gone viral. He lives in Harrisburg, PA with his wife and three children.

We look forward to your attendance!

Sincerely,
The Beyond Awakening Team