In this seven-day in-person retreat you will work with me to develop the spiritual power that makes real breakthrough possible. Deep spiritual practice brings us to a space of inner stillness and peace that gives us tremendous potential to do work in the invisible realms of spirit.

In this retreat we will be working in a way that I have not focused on before. It is the domain in which we build the inner power that allows us to guide the course of our own awakening. You probably notice that this claim seems contrary to the traditional ideas of grace and surrender that I often teach. That is because the work we will engage with on this retreat will be an exploration of what occurs after we have surrendered and given up control.

When we first set off on the path of awakening we are firmly embedded in our ordinary sense of self. We see ourselves as a conscious human being who is limited to the lifetime of a physical body. With that identity there is nothing we can do to awaken ourselves because adherence to that identity is exactly what we are waking up from.

The first stage of awakening involves finding a way to be perfectly content with the way things are and then giving up control so the process of awakening can unfold freely and uninhibitedly within us. But this is only half of the spiritual path. Beyond this level of surrender there is work that can be done in the invisible realms of spirit.

The second level of work is what we will focus on during this retreat. Specifically we will open our awareness to the truth of who we are to recognize our true spiritual power. You will see that your ordinary self cannot affect the invisible realms of spirit, but your true self can.

The work we will engage in begins as we see that beyond our ordinary sense of self we are a point of awareness that exists beyond time and space. From this vantage point we will practice meditation the way I always teach it as the art of conscious contentment and this will be the foundation of our work. What you will discover is that by relaxing into a deep acceptance of the way things are a powerful sense of presence builds in your awareness. This inner vision is strong enough to pierce through our habitual ways of seeing and feeling to reveal perceptions of reality that had previously been invisible to our eyes.

We will use this penetrating gaze to examine every aspect of ordinary experience to see how it is created and maintained by ideas and assumptions that can never be questioned by our limited sense of self. This will be an experiential exploration that stretches us into new sensibilities.

Most importantly, we will discover how to use the power of presence to see the inner workings of spiritual growth and direct ourselves into heightened states of awareness. By exploring these extraordinary states both individually and together we bring a higher and more subtle reality to life between us.

Sincerely,