Featured Events
Lisa Schumacher ~ The Choice to Love: An Inquiry into Our Non-Dual Nature ~ 3 Part Online Series
What does it mean to surrender to love? Is it possible to do so and live in the world? These are some of the questions that arise in the desire to awaken. Love is the medicine and the essential teacher that reveals the living truth, freeing us from the burden of unnecessary suffering. Together we will inquire into what it is that we believe is in the way of loving or being loved. We will discover the truth about who we are and what our essential desire is for our life, and we will open to the living truth of what does not come and go, and the possibility to realize that it is your essential nature. Lisa Schumacher has been a devoted student of her beloved teacher Gangaji, who, in 2005, invited her to begin sharing Satsang. Lisa's approach is rooted in direct self-inquiry, stillness, and the intimate discovery of truth of who you are. She offers a rare and grounded presence, inviting everyone she meets directly into their own loving heart and the quiet recognition of what is already whole and free.
Tuesday, August 18, 2026 @ 10:00am - 12:00pm (Pacific Time), part of a 3-Part Series, includes Aug 18, 19 & 20 at Online Video Meeting (phone access also available)Ryan Burton ~ The Awareness Release & Reverse Method
For centuries, meditation instruction has rested on a single assumption: that awareness must be held — apply effort, sustain attention, and don’t let go. The result is a state of focus that is genuinely useful, but which remains conditioned and maintained by concentration. This workshop teaches the opposite. Rather than sustaining awareness, you will be instructed to release it. The aim is to bring to rest the grasping, efforting, and attempting functions of the mind — the very machinery that keeps the present moment feeling like something to be reached rather than something already fully here. Ryan Burton is a meditation teacher and guide in the non-dual traditions, with over seventeen years of practice across Dhammakaya Theravada, Dzogchen, Vedanta, and Zen.
Sunday, August 23, 2026 @ 9:00am-11:00am (Pacific Time) at Online Video Meeting (phone access also available)Ajaya Sommers ~ Awake Attachment™ – Intimacy with Life as a Path of Embodied Awakening ~ 4 Part Online Series
When the separate self dissolves and awakens to one's natural being, in deep meditation, in nature, in love, what remains is not emptiness. It is intimacy. With everything. And yet most of us cannot sustain it. Because the nervous system learned early that connection was not always safe. But the very places we feel most broken, most defended, most disconnected, are not obstacles to that intimacy. They are the doorway into it. What if the path is not away from attachment but through it, into the embodied realization of being both awake and attached? Awakening to our true nature does not automatically resolve the nervous system patterns organized around protection. This series explores that meeting point — where spiritual realization and the living body learn to breathe together. Ajaya Sommers' work lives at the intersection of somatic intelligence, embodied awakening, relational intimacy, and non-dual inquiry, helping people reclaim presence, coherence, and deeper connection to themselves, others and Life itself.
Monday, August 24, 2026 @ 10:00am-12:00pm (Pacific Time), part of a 4-Part Series, includes Aug 24, 27, 31 & Sep 3 at Online Video Meeting (phone access also available)Kristin Kirk ~ True Freedom & Identity (In-Person)
What is the purpose of identity, and how do you surrender through it into True freedom? Come explore the divine role of Identity. Discover how to surrender through the conditioned self and experience true freedom during Satsang and soul transmission in person with Kristin Kirk. Kristin Kirk is an international healer, spiritual teacher and writer who has been gifted extraordinary vision and healing capacities from her 2003 awakening. She accesses our enlightened self and multidimensional true nature to dissolve our wounds, karma, and conditioning into light and reveal our innate wholeness. Her transformative energy and powerful transmissions accelerate the awakening process and foster deep spiritual growth for many.
Thursday, August 27, 2026 @ 7:00pm-8:45pm (Pacific Time) at Northbrae Community Church
Featured Videos
Open Circle is a non profit organization dedicated to making teachings of wisdom and compassion easily available to everybody.
We operate on the generosity of our community. Please consider making a donation or volunteering with us.
Sign up to receive announcements about events and speakers: