Amrita Mandala UK

24/01/2026

In Chester – a 5-week meditation journey into loving-kindness and emotional healing.

A gentle, step-by-step exploration for those who feel drawn to reconnect inwardly — gradually softening the layers of tension that cover the heart, and rediscovering a natural sense of ease, warmth, and wholeness, in a grounded and supportive way.

Small in-person course, suitable for beginners and experienced meditators.

***A gentle 5-week meditation journey into loving-kindness, compassion, and emotional healing, to centre, soften and reconnect the heart with its natural warmth, inner ease

20/01/2026

“Peace” – is not the goal of meditation.

Firstly, we want to experience the full richness of life, not just "peaceful" states. What about joy, excitement, passion, and fun? Peace becomes attractive mainly when we’re overwhelmed, anxious, fearful, or when life feels overly chaotic or hectic. Then peace is a relief! Isn't it true that what we’re really after is to be fully present to all of life's rich experiences, with a stable presence of mind, and unbound by fear and full of love, joy and wonder?

We want to be free of states like overwhelm and frustration that pull us away from presence and from fully inhabiting our lives. And this is only possible if our presence is stable and steadfast across the whole range of conditions life offers us. This is the underlying peace we’re actually seeking.

Yet as soon as we begin to "chase" peace, we imply to our psyche that peace is somewhere other than right here with us, in this moment. We assume peace is something other than our nature.

Try to remember a time when you felt truly peaceful. Perhaps you were watching the sky, noticing the leaves of a tree moving in the wind, a flock of birds in formation, or some ripples on a lake. In such times, if you notice closely, you’ll see that these moments didn’t take any effort. The environment simply created the conditions for peace and joy to arise spontaneously. In fact, if you reflect, you'll likely notice that times when peace evaded you was when you were desperately searching for it – efforting disrupted the peace of these experiences.

The Mahayana path of meditation understands joy, peace, love, and compassion not as states to be achieved, but as qualities that are naturally and spontaneously present in us already. It is our habitual fixation on them as something outside ourselves that keeps us chasing them away. All states are temporary, even the most blissful meditative absorptions – they arise and they pass. So this is not what we're after.

This is why meditation is fundamentally a path of "insight". We begin to see emotions as unfixed and impermanent, not solid – like clouds passing through the sky. And like the sky, we discover that the mind itself cannot be truly harmed by the storm clouds and thunder.

This is easier said than understood when emotions feel treacherous and turbulent. Insight deepens as we gradually and tenderly allow difficult emotions the space to express themselves. There is often much buried pain beneath the surface, but the monsters under the bed are always scarier in the dark, before we turn a light to them.

By first grounding awareness firmly in the physical body, we establish stability, before gently and carefully turning our awareness as an act of compassion to ourselves to those more difficult sensations as they arise. Over time, we learn that a grounded, peaceful presence is available even when life feels turbulent. We stop living in avoidance and begin living more intimately with life – with greater richness, less fear, and more love.

So rather than aiming for a peaceful meditation, we learn to recognise peace as the capacity to remain present with whatever arises. As we open ourselves to this, meditation may even feel less peaceful for a while. But when we stop chasing peace as a state, it gradually reveals itself as the ground of experience – even in the midst of turbulence. A deeper, more stable peace.

11/01/2026

Feeling really appreciative for the 6 lovely and friendly faces that joined our first session this morning. Very engaged and keen, so it was a delight to lead, and with lots of interesting questions for me at the end, so we dove into a few quite topics in a short space of time.

If there is anything you're still wondering about, because we covered quite a lot, you're welcome to get in touch with me.

This is actually my first week in Chester, so it was nice that this went well, and to get things going. My thanks to Shaun who has so generously allowed us the space to use. We hope to make good use of it in the coming months!

So hope you can join us for the next free session in a couple of weeks on Sunday 25th January (RSVP here)...
https://www.meetup.com/amrita-mandala-uk/events/312513370/

We also have a 5 week course coming up, which will be on Tuesday evenings from Tue 27th Jan, called 'Heart Yoga - Heal and Awaken the Heart' – a loving kindness and compassion practise for centring and gently opening the heart, meaning ~ our experience of life and love in our heart gently opens out too ~.

The course format allows us to progress our understanding of the practise so that it can enrich your home meditation and life. If you're curious you can find out more and sign up here:
https://www.meetup.com/amrita-mandala-uk/events/312221827/

Warmly,

Nataraja 🙏

10/01/2026

This is our first event in Chester! Looking forward to meeting some of you tomorrow, Sunday 11th January at 11am - 12.30pm.

Below is the link to the Meetup page with the details.

The intention is to keep things simple, welcoming, and light-hearted. We’ll explore deep relaxation, releasing inner tension, and discovering a sense of spaciousness, ease, and calm. I’ll also share some reflections on the early stages of meditation and how to make it more enjoyable and sustainable, with time for questions at the end.

If you haven’t RSVP’d yet, you’re still very welcome to come along — no pressure either way.

If you’re coming tomorrow, please feel free to arrive a few minutes early. We’re above Sleepstore, which has its own parking. Come up the stairs to the left of Sleepstore (CH1 4LS — opposite Dunelm, next to Stoker’s Furniture). There’ll be tea and biscuits available, so feel free to make yourself a brew. Wear comfortable clothing. Chairs and meditation mats with cushions are provided, but bring anything you need to sit comfortably.

If you’re new to meditation or feeling unsure, that’s completely fine — you’re very welcome just as you are.

Warm wishes,

Nataraja

https://www.meetup.com/amrita-mandala-uk/events/312513015

06/01/2026

The Mandala of Meditation

Through mindfulness our energies are integrated, from sporadic to evenness.

Through loving kindness and compassion we crack through the crusty layers of our heavy laden hearts, and we open to life.

Through insight we shine the light of wisdom on the darkness of our ignorance, and we begin to see clearly how things are.

Through Bhakti Yoga or Guru Yoga, we cultivate all of the above, along with our devotional qualities, which really means our ability to surrender to that which is beyond the self and be receptive to what is. Our whole being opens out like a lotus flower bathing in sunlight as our Buddhanature reveals itself, and our selfishness is seen through.

These four aspects represent the outer mandala of meditation. And at the centre of this mandala is non-meditation, also known as Atiyoga, where we simply rest in open awareness and allow ourselves to marinate in the enlightened qualities of our own mind that have been revealed to us.

We put forth effort through the activities of the outer mandala, and at the centre we rest and marinate in effortless awareness.

Over and over we do this, until we are completely soaked through so that our whole being is saturated by its natural pristine awareness, and we are no longer separate from our own Buddhanature.

04/01/2026

Meditation is a chance to go within and take time for ourselves. It can be a precious opportunity to take respite from the world, to take a moment from the chaos that can be our lives, to reconnect with our inner stillness. A sacred space that allows for true healing to occur.

Though, that transition from going about your ordinary day to taking some time for yourself for meditation is a tricky one. This resistance is perfectly natural.

We don’t need to fight it so much. Emotions and thoughts are part of the path in meditation, we don’t try to deny them. Rather, they are seen as beneficial to the path. We use the various tools of the mandala of meditation to bring us into presence, and within this space of awareness we give our emotions and thoughts the space they need to play themselves out. In this way we get to know ourselves, and in getting to know ourselves we begin to heal.

The more our meditation begins to feel like a space of nurturing, how it soothes us, the more enjoyable it becomes, and the more inclined we will be to want to get back to this space of meditation.

01/01/2026

Chester meditation classes, courses and workshops - Amrita Mandala style!

Happy New Year folks,

This January I'm moving to Chester to join forces with my good friend Shaun Duffy to begin meditation classes and workshops. Shaun has a great location for our sessions, a studio above 'Sleepstore Chester' (opposite Dunelm on Sealand Road, CH1 4LS).

We're going to begin with a couple of free meditation sessions on Sunday 11th and 25th January, both at 11am - 12.30pm. These will be nice and easy going guided sessions suitable for all levels of experiences, focusing on simple techniques that bring one into presence and calm, as well as gentle loving kindness practises to heal the heart. You can find out about them on our events page here:
https://fb.me/e/8oFb06J1S

We will also begin our first course 'Heart Yoga: Heal and Awaken the Heart' which will run every Tuesday for 5 weeks from Tuesday 27th January, we hope you can join us for that. It will be a chance to go more in depth into a heart healing practise known as Tonglen, a way to make your meditation practises much richer and more fruitful through loving kindness. Find out about it on our Meetup page here:
https://www.meetup.com/amrita-mandala-uk/events/312221827/

In the near future we will also begin weekend workshops to teach the essential basics of Amrita Kriya Yoga and Rainbow Body Yoga practises. These are the powerful foundational yogic practises of Amrita Mandala Sangha as taught by head teacher Amrita Baba, as a pragmatic path of healing and awakening to enlightenment for ordinary modern day spiritual seekers. So stay tuned.

We eventually hope that enough of you will be interested and benefit from what we do so that we can form a group (a Sangha - spiritual community) in Chester to meet regularly and practise more deeply together the teachings of Amrita Mandala, including mini retreats.

Here's me and Shaun on an Amrita Mandala retreat last summer in Slovenia at Amrita Baba's Ashram.

Wishing you a joyful start to the New Year.

Nataraja

Amrita Mandala is a spiritual path of healing and awakening for ordinary modern people with busy lives. The meditation practises reveal our natural inner calm, clarity, love and joy, by dissolving our attachments and seeing through the illusion of the ego structure. Underneath the rigid walls of our

14/10/2025

A Direct Method to Awakening...

In our workshop you'll be guided through the “Two-Part Formula to Awakening” – a precise and direct method of "insight" practise specifically for realising the first awakening.

To be clear – this is the first true and permanent awakening.

– known traditionally as ”Stream-Entry”, “First Kensho”, "First Bhumi Opening" etc.

The reason why it works is because it directly addresses the fundamental mechanism of awakening at it's core:

– the "I" thought that originates from behind the eyes, as an energetic "knot"

The basis of the “I-thought” exists as an energetic construct of the mind, which creates the convincing feeling of there being a "me" located behind the eyes.

This funny sense that "I" am at the centre of the universe, that there is a “me” in the centre of my head who sits behind the eyes and makes all my decisions, where all my thoughts and ideas originate from.

We’ve gone through life never questioning this assumption.

We know from neuroscience there is no singular origin to all our thoughts and actions or sense of “self”.

And if we were to truly look, we would find there’s simply no solid, permanent “self” to be found.

Where do your thoughts come from?
Where are decisions made?
When you point to a "me", do you somehow think the essence of you originates from behind the eyes?

The basis of our sense of “me” originates as an energetic construct – the root of our belief – and from this root the entire tree of our "self" is formed:

the feeling of being a “me”, the image and identity of "me", along with the trunk of self-identity and all the roots, branches and leaves of who we think we are – all stems from this original "I-thought" whose seed begins as an energetic construct that we label "me".

Thoughts, feelings and emotions arise and we instantly grasp at them as “mine”, believing they arose from this centre of origin “me”.

This energetic construct of "I, me" gives us our sense of solidity, permanence and separateness, as if we are somehow separate from this universe that revolves around us, and is the very source of our confusion, angst and fear.

How do we see through this illusory sense of "me" and release the central "knot" behind the eyes?

That's what the "Two-Part Formula" is for, a simple and precise method that anyone can learn, to dismantle the central illusion and release the ego hook at the centre of the head - the first awakening! And beginning of the path to true freedom.

See here for more details: subscribepage.io/free-awakening-workshop

13/10/2025

The Quiet Desperation Beneath It All…

That faint hum of unease in the depths of you,
a sense that *something’s missing* — even when life looks fine on the surface.
You can’t quite put your finger on it,
but there’s a deep inner ache in the background,
an undercurrent of discomfort,
a feeling that no matter what you achieve, heal, or fix…
something still feels off!
Not everyone recognises this feeling, but you do —
and you’re waking up to a greater truth, but you haven’t broken through yet.

This inner ache colours everything, cannot be ignored anymore.
You recognise this same subtle pain in others,
this unresolved ache in their eyes too –
no one ever quite satisfied, always striving,
carrying on like zombies, seemingly ignorant of their own pain,
as if all this is just supposed to be normal!

But something in you knows there's nothing natural about this.
This endless search outside of oneself – personal development, psychotherapy, mindfulness –
these things certainly help, but none of them go deep enough,
none touch the essence of who you are, the deepest pain.
Endless stress reduction and self analysis just don’t get to the root of the matter.

Despondency. Utter disillusionment.
—This comes from the feeling that you have nowhere else to turn.
You’ve tried every angle, but nothing resolves.
Yet without reaching this point, our ego-clinging resists opening to a greater truth.
It’s often not until all avenues are taken away,
and all options seem futile —
that *true surrender* can happen.

The true spiritual path takes courage...

To let go of all that you thought you were.
To open yourself to a deeper and greater reality
that exists beyond the limited confines of who you think you are.

And this is where Awakening begins...

When you finally stop searching for relief “out there,”
and turn inward — to see directly into the root of suffering itself.
Once the illusion of the separate “self” is seen through,
that quiet ache dissolves into the natural peace and inner freedom that’s always been here.

If you’ve felt this quiet ache too,
and sense that life must hold something deeper,
then you're always welcome to join one of our free online Awakening Workshops where you'll be guided through a method that directly addresses the heart of the matter —
a way to look directly into this illusion of “self” to release the central hook of the ego that binds us.

12/10/2025

Hi folks, the mission is recommencing!

I've moved from North Wales to Birmingham with the intention to begin running meditation workshops around the UK. That might still take a while, but to begin with I'm running these online Awakening Workshops, for free! They're for teaching a simple and direct method that anyone can learn to awaken.

You can also download the "Awake! Handbook for Awakening" by Amrita Baba, which has the full explanation and instructions of the method, along with several dialogues of people who were guided to awakening, so you can learn from them and be inspired by their examples.

If you're curious, all the info is below!...

The inner ache, feeling of quiet desperation - learn a method that directly addresses the root ‘knot’: the ’I, me’ thought, to realise our first awakening!

05/10/2024

What does the 'subtle energy body' look like?

The following is a representation of the subtle energy body as taught by my teacher Amrita Baba based on his visions, who worked closely with James Prevette from Canada to create this detailed visual of the 'causal body' made up of 'nadi channels' and the chakras above and below the body (bhumi chakras), as well as chakras inside the limbs.

The 'Jewel Visualisation' is a foundational practise in Amrita Mandala, imagining the body and aura as flawless diamond, along with the vertical pillar that runs through the spine, raising above and descending below the body 5 or 6 metres connecting us to our Buddhanature. We imagine light flowing through the vertical pillar from above and below, meeting at the heart chakra, and then radiating out through our diamond body and aura as rainbow light, purifying our being, as well as extending out in all directions to reach all beings.

I was always amazed how quickly people in the meditation classes got the hang of this and were able to get a direct experience for themselves of connecting to the subtle energy body. Doing so immediately 'grounds' you, at least to some extent, in the clarity of pure awareness, the stable ground of our very own Buddhanature, because this is what our causal body of nadis represents.

In the same way we can understand and explore our inner organs and what they feel like if we have some understanding of our physical anatomy, with a clear and stable mind we can also feel into and explore and become familiar with our subtle energy bodies if we understand the anatomy of them.

Practice with Amrita Baba: https://www.amritamandala.com/calendarAmrita Darshan: https://www.amritadarshan.com/Amrita Mandala: https://www.amritamandala.com/...