Embracing True Nature
Moving beyond the personality with the Awareness Intensive Retreats

« Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it,
What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside. »

Ramana Maharshi

We generally identify with our personality, with what we refer to as ‘me’ and often don’t imagine that what we are, our innate nature, is something totally different. Through religion and religious practices we come to know that there is something out there which is referred to as God. Yet God is most commonly represented as an entity far away from the down to earth sentient beings that we are. In Buddhism there is no God per say but the promise of Nirvana if we behave well.
Both approaches tend to drive us away from what we really are, from the source we come from and to emphasize this I’d like to quote an Indian sage who spoke about this in the following terms. 

« You may not be aware of it, you may not have ever dreamed about it, that you are a Buddha, that nobody can be anything else, that Buddhahood is the very essential core of your being, that it is not something to happen in the future, that it has happened already. It is the very source you come from; it is the source and the goal too. It is from Buddhahood that we move, and it is to Buddhahood that we move. This one word, Buddhahood, contains all, the full circle of life, from the alpha to the omega.
But you are fast asleep, you don't know who you are. Not that you have to become a Buddha, but only that you have to recognize it, that you have to return to your own source, that you have to look within yourself. A confrontation with yourself will reveal your Buddhahood. »

Going beyond this incarnation that we are, questioning our beliefs, questioning the authenticity of this ‘me’ whom we identify with, is exactly what the Embracing True Nature series of retreats aim to. They will support you to recover, to reclaim your original face or True Nature.

This journey towards True Nature will start with a Zest of Self-Enquiry; a 1-day workshop for those who have an interest for spirituality in general and who would like to better understand what True Nature is as well as experience the practice of self-enquiry in an informal format. This 1-day workshop will enable a smooth access to the path towards our True Nature.

Once the aim and the practice of self-enquiry is well understood and its practice fully grasped, participating within the specific format of a silent retreat in the 3-day Ridding the Bull Home retreat will support your endeavour to be in a ‘yes’ to what is, the needed step to settle in an authentic ‘me’, stripped of projections and identifications. This will give access to directly experience True Nature.

Love is one of the quality or expression that True Nature encompasses. Participating in the 5-day retreat Being and Living Love will enable you to directly experience what love is. Directly experiencing Love and bringing this quality into your daily living will certainly bring a 180° turn to your world. Give it a try!

Being the Source, is a 7-day silent retreat where you can immerse yourself in enquiring and experiencing the boundless Source that you are. The source of Existence is within us, when we tune to the reality of what is, we become the Source.
A little story to illustrate this.

« A Chinese emperor called all the painters of his empire. He himself was in deep love with painting and he asked the painters: “I want to declare one of you the master painter of my empire. You are going to be my guest and you have to paint. I will come to see your paintings and whichever painting proves to be the best, the painter will become part of my royal court and the master painter of the whole empire, with many rewards.”
Thousands of painters participated in this competition. One old painter said to the king: “It will take at least three years for me to complete the painting, and I have few conditions. While I am making the painting, nobody should enter into my house. I don’t want anybody to see the incomplete painting. When the painting is complete, I will invite you.”
The king said: “Three years? this is too much.”
The painter replied: “Then I can get out of the competition. Three years is nothing. You don’t know what I am going to paint.”
Reluctantly the emperor agreed. All the other painters finished their work, somebody in one week, somebody in two weeks, at the most four weeks. But the king was not satisfied. He was waiting for the old man because without seeing his painting he cannot declare his judgment.
After three years the old man came and told the emperor. “Now the painting is complete, you are welcome.”
He was painting in the king’s palace itself. He had been given a beautiful palace which was guarded twenty-four hours a day so that nobody should enter for three years. Let the painter do his work unhindered, un-interfered with.
The emperor was waiting for three years. It is a long time; he was old and was afraid that perhaps death may come before then. But fortunately he was still alive. With great wonder in his heart he entered the place where the painter had done his work.
He had painted on a whole wall of the place, a beautiful forest with a small river flowing, and a small footpath going into the deep forest and disappearing into the mountains that he had painted.
The king could not believe his eyes. It was almost miraculous, magical. He was in awe. After a long silence he asked the painter only one question. “I am very much interested in this little footpath that goes around the forest, it is seen sometimes around the mountains and then disappears. Where does it go?”
The painter said: “There is no other way to know unless you walk on it.”
The king completely forgot that it was only a painting. He was so overwhelmed by the beauty that he took the hand of the painter in his hand and they both walked on the path and disappeared into the mountains.
They have not returned yet. »

When ‘me’ disappears, when there is nothing to hold on anymore, nowhere to go, no goal to attain, then the immensity that we are reveals itself.  We become the Source and that Source is God, that source is Nirvana.

For those who would like to facilitate Awareness Intensive retreats, there is a possibility, with the Awareness Intensive Training to move in that direction.  Use the Contact form if you are interested.