Rites Of Passage: The Right Of Every Child Born

Frederick Marx

Award-winning Film maker

Date: Saturday, April 20th

Time: 2 - 4pm

Venue: Brahma Kumaris Meditation Center

Everyone knows the African proverb "It takes a village to raise a child."  But few know Michael Meade's apt inversion: "It takes the struggles of youth to raise a village." Our functioning as a community can best be measured by how effective we are in offering our young people growthful rites of passage into adulthood - effective challenges that can positively define them as newly emergent adults. It's our job as elders to hold and contain the energy of young people during their time of furious transition. The implications of not doing so already surround us in the myriad forms of dysfunctional teen behavior.  What can we do to repair this breech in the generational chain? A long-time student of these issues, Frederick Marx has some inspiring ideas.

Frederick Marx is an internationally acclaimed, Oscar and Emmy nominated director/writer with 35 years in the film business. He was named a Chicago Tribune Artist of the Year for 1994, a 1995 Guggenheim Fellow, and a recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy Special Achievement Award. His film HOOP DREAMS played in hundreds of theatres nationwide after winning the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and was the first documentary ever chosen to close the New York Film Festival. It was on over 100 "Ten Best" lists nationwide and was named Best Film of the Year by critics Roger Ebert, Gene Siskel, Gene Shalit, and Ken Turran and by the Chicago Film Critics Association. Ebert also named it Best Film of the Decade. It is one of the highest grossing non-musical documentaries in United States history.

Finding Sublime Peace and Exuberant Joy in Your Occupation

Guest Facilitator: Duane Light
Holistic lawyer, musician, meditator, and teacher


Date: January 26, 2013
Time: 2 - 4pm
Venue: San Francisco Meditation Center


Within each of us is our true essence, eternally holding for us profound peace, compassion, love, joy,healing and wisdom. Repeated focus on what brings us to stable tranquility opens the doorway to the divine, and this is accessible to all of us. Our work in the world, even something as inherently stressful as a law practice, is ripe with opportunities to surrender into peace, joy, life satisfaction, and enlightened service to others. Duane will share how he has come to experience these in his work, and offer suggestions for how you might more deeply enjoy your unique path to That.

Duane Light, J.D. is a licensed attorney, with four decades of spiritual study and practice including extensive meditation, yoga, tai chi and chi gung.  During his five years in Asia he developed an ability to reach Samadhi states, which he now accesses for daily peace and joy, physical and emotional healing, and guidance for his life and for his clients and cases.  

He is a "holistic" lawyer in the sense that he addresses the whole person and whole situation, counseling on emotional, psychological, spiritual, and practical aspects. For more information you can visit www.PeaceInTheLaw.com.

The Ease of Being

Guest Facilitator: Richard Miller, PhD.    

Founder, Executive Director & President of the Board of Directors, Integrative Restoration Institute

Date: December 15, 2012

Time: 10am - 3pm

Venue: Anubhuti Retreat Center

Well-Being and peace of mind are always knocking at the door of our awareness, from the inside, longing for expression. These natural expressions of our essential nature naturally blossom through meditation that nourishes our innate ground of Being.

We engage meditative teachings through periods of iRest Yoga Nidra meditation and spirited dialogue. iRest helps us relinquish limiting beliefs about who we think we are, so that we can recover what we truly are: timeless presence and unshakable peace.

Richard Miller, PhD., is a clinical psychologist, author, researcher, yogic scholar and spiritual teacher. He is author of Yoga Nidra: The Meditative Heart of Yoga, and the founding president of the Integrative Restoration Institute where he leads retreats in enlightened living, as well as conducts research with the yoga nidra meditation protocol he has developed (Integrative Restoration - iRest) with soldiers, veterans, students, children, the homeless, and people experiencing issues such as PTSD, chemical dependency, sleep disorders, and chronic pain. For more information on Richard's teachings please visit www.irest.us.

Enlighten Minds with Lightness

Guest Presenter Chade-Meng Tan (Meng)

Google pioneer & award-winning engineer,  NY Times bestselling author, a thought leader, philanthropist  

Date: September 15, 2012

Time: 10am - 3pm

Venue: Anubhuti Retreat Center

Chade-Meng Tan was one of Google's earliest engineers. Among many other things, Meng helped build Google's first mobile search service, and headed the team that kept a vigilant eye on Google's search quality. After an eight-year stint in Engineering, he now serves with GoogleEDU as the Head of Personal Growth. One of his main projects is Search Inside Yourself -- a mindfulness-based emotional intelligence course, which he hopes will eventually contribute to world peace in a meaningful way.
 
Outside of Google, Meng is the Founder and (Jolly Good) President of the Tan Teo Charitable Foundation, a small foundation dedicated to promoting peace, liberty and enlightenment in the world. He is a founding patron of Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE).  He is also a founding patron of the World Peace Festival, and adviser to a number of technology startups.

Chade-Meng Tan: Everyday compassion at Google

 

"To create the conditions for global compassion, all we have to do is to reframe compassion as something that is fun." - Chade-Meng Tan       

Transformation and Transcendence: Is compassion the key?

Speaker: James Doty, MD
Inventor, Entrepreneur & Philanthropist

NOTE: Jim fell sick in June and could not attend the circle. So, we've rescheduled him to speak in August

Date : August 25, 2012
Time : 2 - 4pm
Venue : San Francisco Meditation Center

Mindfulness has had a dramatic impact on western society with ever more science validating its benefit. At the same time while transformation occurs, does it lead to that which all seek which is transcendence...that outer journey beyond self to realize that we are all one. Science is giving us new insights into the benefit of being compassionate. Is compassion in response to suffering the key to transcendence?

About the Presenter

James R. Doty, M.D. is a professor of neurosurgery and the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University. He works with a variety of scientists from a number of disciplines examining the neural bases for compassion and altruism. Dr. Doty is an inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist, having given support to a number of charitable organizations supporting peace initiatives and providing healthcare throughout the world. Additionally, he has supported research, provided scholarships and endowed chairs at multiple universities.

Light refreshments will be served at the end. The event is free of charge.

The Internet to the Inner-net

Speaker: Gopi Kallayil

Business Marketing Leader (Google), Triathlete, Yoga & Meditation Practitioner

Date : July 21, 2012

Time : 2 - 4pm

Venue : Brahma Kumaris Meditation Center

The Internet has become humanity's invisible central nervous system that connects us and can sometimes overwhelm us. Yet, the most important technology is within us - our brain, body, and consciousness. A fast-paced career in the hi-tech industry in combination with a deep yoga and meditation practice have allowed me to integrate my inner and outer technologies. Wisdom from my yoga mat and meditation cushion guide my professional career and, in turn, my professional life provides the perfect classroom to deepen my wisdom practice. 

ABOUT THE PRESENTER 

Gopi Kallayil works at Google on the marketing of Google Plus and is based out of the Googleplex in Mountain View, California. Earlier he worked on marketing the company's flagship advertising product,AdWords, in the Americas and Asia Pacific. Gopi also led the marketing team for AdSense, Google's publisher-facing product.

Before joining Google, Gopi was Vice-President of Strategic Alliances at Nextance, an enterprise Contract Management Software startup. He was also Vice-President of Business Development and a founding management team member at Allegrix, an Application Software Provider start-up acquired by Progress Software. While a consultant with McKinsey & Co., he worked on engagements helping the management teams of large corporations improve business performance and maximize revenues. Additionally, Gopi has led large Information Technology projects for global corporations in India, China, and the US. Gopi earned his Bachelors degree in electronics engineering from the National Institute of Technology in India. He received his Masters in Business Administration degrees from the Indian Institute of Management and The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He is an avid yoga practitioner, triathlete, public speaker, global traveler and Burning Man devotee.

Funfair: Celebration of our Interdependence on Mother's Day

Bring your family to a funfair celebrating our interconnectedness while honoring the diversity in Marin on May 13. 

Exciting things to expect at the fair include storyteller, speakers, music, improv, dance, exhibits, food and much more. Speakers are BK General Secretary Brij Mohan, Consulate General of India N. Parthasarathi and Bettina Gray. Artists performing will be Emmy award-winning Singer Gary Malkin, and Grammy-nominee Storyteller Diane Ferlatte, Mexican Dancers Ballet de Folklorico and Improv Artist Jill Eickmann. 

It's Mother's Day and we will have a ceremony to honor all the mother's at the event. 

A partner and award-winning film maker, Tiffany Shlain, will show the trailer of her movie ”Declaration of Interdependence”. 

This special celebration will be held at the Anubhuti Retreat Center in Novato. Click here for directions. Please carpool.

Program is as follows:

11:00 am Funfair, Exhibits, Art Gallery, Games and Kid's Entertainment

12:00 pm Lunch

1:00 pm   Public Program and Children's Improv session

4:00 pm   End of Program

This event is FREE. Please RSVP and/or send questions to anubhuti@bkwsu.org.