Vartamana Retreat

04/04/2025

Find refuge in these times by coming to a highly recommended retreat with Jared Franks. Starting Thursday 10 April.

12/06/2023

Hello All, This post is to let you know that Vartamana Retreat Centre has closed. After over 13 years of the 'business' of hosting and providing for group retreats; personal retreats and sharing in an amazing array of healing experiences, it is time now for some rest and to see what other doors might open.

There will also be the occasional use of the Shubha room. Including the Satsang Retreats with Jared Franks that I host, and have done for about 9 years. Notice of these will still be posted here and emails sent to those that have been on my mailing list.

I sincerely want to thank everyone who has spent time at Vartamana and made this journey of 'moving, living and abiding in Presence' all that it has been. 💜🙏💙

06/04/2023

The objection to pain . . . Is pain

A powerful and eye-opening speech by Alan Watts on life's eternal rhythms and th emysteries of the ocean. Original Audio sourced from: Love of Waters - Early...

02/04/2023

Peace beyond understanding . . . 🙏

Here is the secret:

The cross
points to THAT
which cannot be crucified.

It reminds us of Who We Truly Are -
prior to the story of time and space.

In this place of raw presence, the bride and the bridegroom, the father and the son, time and the timeless, emptiness and form, even life and death are merely imaginary mental opposites, swimming in a love and a silence and a wholeness beyond comprehension, which we may refer to as ‘God’.

Or we may simply keep silent.

The wild torture of the cross
sucks the separate self into
its infinitely calm centre.

The crucifixion, understood in its deeper spiritual and mythological sense, points beyond psychology and even theology, to this ultimate invitation to awaken from separation; in other words, to die to all that is false, and in the midst of that devastation, to discover the eternal Life that we are.

Call it ‘God’ or call it ‘awareness’ or call it nothing at all, it really doesn’t matter at all.

We all live our own crucifixion! We all face ruin and ridicule and despair and the loss of the image. Nobody escapes the trials of life. Nobody can divide themselves from the river of humanity, as the Buddha taught.

The only question is, what is our relationship to this existence? Can we “lovingly give ourselves up to the torment”? Can we be “joined forever” to ourselves, with “peace beyond understanding”?

Can we see that death itself is not something to fear, but a dear friend reminding us of the preciousness of our very existence?

Can we begin to find inner acceptance even in the midst of the utterly unacceptable moments?

Can we die and be reborn...
in every Now?

- Jeff Foster

14/03/2023

Beautiful. . . .

"I knelt on a precipice
watching the moonrise
and felt a chill of truth
go through me.
No matter how far I fall,
I’m still in the lap of God;
Only God is coming to me.

And it’s all right–
even in my soul’s dark night.
It’s all right–
I know I’ll find my way
And some day,
I’ll look back on this and say
It was just a dream I had."

From "Purnamadah Purnamidam (2012)"
On the CD: Unseen Grace

21/01/2023

Welcome Home 🙏

'Your tenderness, your kindness, your acceptance—your welcomingness—is the doorway through which everything that has been previously unloved can “come home” and return to source.' - AM

19/01/2023

Love these words 🙏

Today we honor Martin Luther King, Jr., an inspiring and beloved leader, for his devotion to love, peace, freedom, and justice for all.
May there be freedom and justice for all.