Surya Chandra Das and Patricia Brown guide a student to be self-referenced

Our Teaching
Bringing 30 of practice and teaching to our work, we offer the rare opportunity to live in the support of silent community while deepening awareness with the practices of classical yoga and meditation.

Patricia's Teaching I view the practices as guide posts used to deepen present moment awareness, while creating space to relax all striving, to cultivate awareness of a deepened field of intelligence and to recognize, rest and live from a natural state of being. I encourage inner listening, open focused attention, gentleness and respect for the unique way the mystery unfolds in each of us.

Yoga asana - a slow and attentive exploration of yoga asana encouraging sensitive listening and attunement to the felt sense by using the poses as forms for exploration and deepening awareness while the breath acts as a thread woven throughout the practice. By dropping the conditioned tendency toward efforting and striving in favor of an open ended bodily- based inquiry, a deeper intelligence has the space and time to be revealed and a yoga practice returned to a subtle, internally referenced experience.

Meditation - invites an open attentiveness to the moment, where all arisings are simply noted as a familiarity ripens to rest as the unobjectified space in which all thought, emotion and sensation occur.

Inquiry - is a tool for being with life's challenges, interrupting tendencies toward habitual reactivity by learning to be present for what is here with clarity and gentleness. It is a tool for developing a high level of self responsibility leading to spiritual maturity.

Surya's Teaching
My intention is to gently guide us back to the present moment; to direct our attention to the always available spacious presence of our true nature; to support us to listen to the deep intelligence of our bodies; to trust a wisdom and understanding that is beyond conditioned thought and to encourage us to listen to and trust our own knowing rather than an outer authority.

I invite us to inquire into the ways we may integrate the insights gained on retreat and the deep teachings of yoga into the fabric of our daily lives after retreat.

Yoga asana (postures), meditation, pranayama, yoga nidra, restorative postures, self-inquiry and silence are offered in support of this turning toward and resting in the peace and wisdom of our natural state, beyond and beneath our conditioning.

I consider yoga at its best to be the exploration of Love and Compassion.

We have personally found that silent retreat provides the most supportive and restful environment for learning to be present for ourselves as we are and and life as it is. By consciously learning to listen to the body and open to long-held patterns, a deeper knowing which is always present reveals itself. We may call this Awareness, Presence, Love or the ordinary tenderness of our True Nature.