Rolling Meadows Retreat

09/01/2025

The Ease of Being
Meditation, Yoga and Breathwork Silent Retreat
November 6-10, 2025
with Surya
Casa Portal,
Brooks, Maine
$1,295

Due to a recent cancellation there is one space available for this retreat.

08/18/2025

The Ease of Being
Meditation, Yoga and Breathwork Silent Retreat
November 6-10, 2025
with Surya
Casa Portal,
Brooks, Maine
$1,295

05/23/2025

Love Is Our True Nature

At the heart of every religion is the same truth: we are made of Love. Though each tradition may use different language or rituals, they all point to this essential reality—Love is the fabric of life.

The real question is: if Love is who we are, what keeps us from living it?

The answer is simple, though not easy—we live in fear. We’re caught in our minds, believing we are separate. Love feels vulnerable and uncertain, and the mind doesn’t like uncertainty. It clings to the past or worries about the future, while Love can only be felt here and now.

To return to Love, we don’t need to seek anything outside ourselves. We need to feel the fear in our bodies, allow it fully, and stop resisting it—because resistance only gives it more power.

Since Love is already here, our work is to notice what blocks it and let those barriers fall away, one by one. With each step, we come closer to living from our true nature.

More and more, I see that Love is all that truly matters. When we make that our focus moment by moment, we begin to live in Love—not perfectly, not without struggle, but more deeply each day.

The ego may resist, but there is nothing more important, or more precious, in this brief life.

05/14/2025

04/24/2025

Neti Neti

One of the most profound, yet simple teachings from the Upanishads is the term Neti Neti. It means “not this, not that”.
It’s a direct way of realizing the Self (Atman). Since our True Nature or Brahman is infinite and beyond form, as we let go of identification with form we come to know who we really are.
“I am not my thoughts”. “I am not my body.” “I am not my emotions,” and so on. What remains is pure consciousness or undivided awareness. The yogic journey is actually very simple although our minds often complicate it. It’s simply a process of letting go of everything we are not. The result is to live in Freedom, Ease, Peace, and Love.

The practice is not only useful as a spiritual practice but as a way to navigate our practical, earthly journey. It has been helpful for me as I attempt to navigate my life without my late wife who was my best friend and soul-mate for 36 years. We did everything together and one-half of me is gone. I am often lost without her. I am attempting to learn who I am now. Rather than having a specific idea of how I should spend my time, what tasks I should take on, who I should spend time with, etc I attempt to reflect on what my recent experiences have been.
If it does not feel right for me I say “not this” or “not that.” I find it more accurate and authentic than deciding who or what I am. By letting go of things that don’t feel right on the physical plane I find myself learning what’s right for me now.

04/22/2025

Drop the Story

Many years ago I was in Berkley working with a Breathwork facilitator who was helping me find some clarity in a difficult time in my life. Evenings she took me to a college auditorium where a spiritual teacher named Gangaji was giving a series of nightly talks. Each talk explored ways of letting go of the identification with our body/mind and to live from a much deeper place beyond the limited conditioning of the mind. I had been practicing meditation for some time by then so the basic understand was clear to me. Much of her teaching was done thru having a student appear of the stage with her in a dialogue whereby the student asked Gangaji questions and spoke of their difficulties.
Through these interviews there was a suggestion that she offered over and over to each student. It was simply “Drop the Story.”
She was speaking to that inner conversation we are constantly having with ourselves about what’s happening, what we want, what we fear. She was pointing to the fact that although this narrative is of course occurring, it blocks us from living from a deeper truth beyond our limited conditioning.
By dropping the story for even a brief time, we can make contact with what is underneath the story line - stillness, spaciousness, presence.
As I said, I had been on the spiritual path for quite some time by then, but the simplicity of her suggestion has a powerful impact os me. Too often a spiritual practice can be complex and cause us to become more in our head. This message said “Just let it go. Don’t try to understand it of fix it.”
Very often When I am lost in thought I simply say to myself “Drop the story.” When I am able to do this it’s most always helpful.

04/19/2025

As we go through life we receive and select various roles or identities. The role of being a mother, father, grandparent, teacher, doctor, lawyer, successful business person, wise therapist or brilliant scientist. The list is endless. They can be roles that we and society consider “praiseworthy” like a successful athlete or diminishing like “uneducated” or “uncreative”. We even identify wth roles like “the quiet one”, “an introvert”, “the hero”, or “the victim” Having recently lost my wife I find myself identifying as a “widower” or the “grieving one”. This can keep me “stuck” in the grief. While of course I am going through these passages, it’s not who I am. Very often we don’t recognize the depth or strength of our identification.

When identified with a role the ego is guarding our image. If we are challenged it can feel like the other is attacking our self-worth. When dropping the role we can hear them more clearly and not feel personally challenged. Freedom.

In truth we are none of these roles. We are the vast, unknown, undivided consciousness or awareness that underlies and pervades every one of us. We are all interconnected. No one is above or below another. There is endless freedom in this both in life and as we face our death. I witnessed this with my wife in the time before her passing. Because of her endless exploration of her spiritual life she met her illness with grace and calm. She had no fear. She said that beyond her form she was awareness and that after her form dissolved she would still be the undivided awareness -that her soul, journey in this form was complete and it was her time to move on to the unknown. What a blessing to live with that understanding.

I encourage you to take time to explore the various roles you have assumed, to see how strongly you identify with them and to see how you might let go of that identification. Feel it in your body, listen to your heart. In the end the heart is the most reliable guide.
It’s the doorway to the ultimate truth. You are Love itself, connected to every one and everything.

04/16/2025

My late wife, Patricia, devoted her life to deepening her spiritual understanding and sharing this with of students over many years. She embodied Love.She loved to write poetry.
The following is from her cookbook.

SELF-AWARENESS

You can’t force the container open
Lift the lid slowly with
great interest and curiosity.
Be patient….
Cultivating a
willingness to
Simply Stay
in the formerly
overlooked
corner.
Yes, there in that corner,
with a castaway lodged
deep,
fueling suffering.

Turn there now, softly,
so softly now.
Open to the
tension, numbness, trembling.
Open to this way of
being.
Notice urges to move away.
Habitual ways of distraction.
Be adamant and infinitely gentle.
Cultivate
again this willingness to really be here
Simply stay
Simply stay
as Openness.

Everything is the
Silence
of
Love.
-awareness

04/15/2025

Forgiveness

The ability to forgive is one of the most healing and beneficial actions one can take for themselves or others. In my observations and conversations with students on retreat over the years I have been struck by the number of people carrying the burden of anger, resentment, jealousy or hatred toward another.
One of the essential purposes of spiritual practice is to develop the capacity to “step out of the box” of our limited perspectives, the conditioning of our limited mindset. Once someone is able to see the self-harm caused by their inability to forgive, they often become open to exploring their options. They begin to see that their lack of forgiveness is a heavy burden on themselves with absolutely no benefit to anyone.
After attending many silent retreats and having a regular sitting practice I began to recognize judgments I held against my father for the anger he directed toward me. I felt the burden of holding on to these judgments against him. I decided to see a therapist to explore this unhelpful pattern. His simple statement to me was “Perhaps he was doing the best he could given the challenges he faced in his childhood.” I must have been ready because his words went right to my heart. Over the following weeks and months I began to explore his question and in time I was able to fully forgive my father. A giant burden was released.
From time to time in retreats I will offer the notion that we might consider that people that have offended us, wounded us or caused us to hold resentment, etc are perhaps “doing the best they could given their own challenges”. I find people’s reactions are quite varied. Some embrace the idea, others consider this a possibility and other strongly reject it. There is no “right way” to approach forgiveness. But I encourage all of us to take time to be quiet and still from time to time to reflect on this question of forgiveness and to notice if we are holding on to resentments, anger or judgment toward a person, to feel it’s impact us and to see if we might explore how we might release ourselves from the burden.

04/13/2025

I have always been interested in my spiritual life but many years ago while listening to a radio program early one morning I heard talk by Alan Watts. I was immediately struck by his voice and message. A spark was ignited and my deep dive into this world began. I started reading various books by many spiritual teachers (at one point my wife and had enough books to start a book store), going to talks and retreats, attending workshops and traveling to India and other countries to be with spiritual teachers. A few years later while attending a retreat lead by Adyashanti in California I was struck by his statement that “One of the biggest problems with finding the Truth is your seeking.” Being raised a family that placed a high value hard work and living in a culture that seems to emphasize this, I applied that message to most of what I did in my life, including the pursuit of spiritual understanding. It took me some time to fully grasp what Adya was saying.

Of course we need to make effort to understand the deep teaching and to apply them to our life. Like everything else, it about balance. The danger of seeking is that we assume we are lacking something, that what we are seeking is something outside of ourself. We feel we need to become more awakened or more enlightened. This can reinforce the sense that we are separate and incomplete. Seeking because a hinderance when it keeps us focused or a future goal rather than resting in the reality that you are whole and complete right now. What we are seeking outside of ourself is who and what we are right now.

One of the most helpful ways I can notice when I am caught in this loop of seeking is to notice my body. When feel tension for holding in my body it’s often a sign that we are caught in seeking, in wanting what is already here. All of this striving is stored in the body. All it wants is our loving attention -not be fixed but just seen, felt and loved. Once the mind stops trying to fix or seek, the body relaxes and we can relax into who we truly are.

04/12/2025

Silent Retreat
Many ask why are our meditation and yoga retreats silent?
In silence, free from the distractions of daily life, we have space and time to pause and meet ourselves in a deeply introspective way. Likewise during a silent retreat, the habit of looking outside ourselves for fulfillment shifts to sensing ourselves from within. As a result, this shift of awareness is the beginning of noticing the space in which all thought arises. To clarify, this deeper intelligence is often overlooked because of the habit of being in thought rather than in present the moment.

In our silent retreats, we provide the environment to nourish the turning toward this deeper knowing and less encumbered way of being. Equally important, through the practices, we encourage mindfulness. This leads to an awareness of the difference between thinking and being in the moment.

“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“It is in the sanctuary of nature’s silent places, with mindful attention, that the true liberation of the heart can be obtained.” ~Buddha

Silence allows for solitude in which clarity, strength, renewal, rest and deepened trust can arise.