Amrita Mandala UK

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

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/...