Event: An Evening with Michael Bernard Beckwith

Come and join us for this special event. 

Date: Friday, September 28
Time: 7 pm to 8:30 pm
Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa
2075 Occidental Road

Michael Bernard Beckwith is the founder and spiritual director of the Agape International Spiritual Center. Based in Los Angeles, California, Agape is a trans-denominational, multicultural community of thousands of local, national and international members and live streamers.   Highly regarded for his teachings on the science of inner transformation, Dr. Beckwith embraces a practical approach to spirituality that acknowledges the accelerated pace of our contemporary times.  His unique transmission of spiritual practices including meditation, affirmative prayer, and life visioning enable the practitioner to take the experience of inner peace coupled with awakened awareness into the activities of everyday life.

An eminent representative within diverse religious traditions and harbingers of world peace, in February 2012 Dr. Beckwith addressed the United Nations General Assembly as part of its annual World Interfaith Harmony Week. As co-founder and president of the Association for Global New Thought, he had the distinguished honor of presenting to Nelson Mandela the Gandhi King Award. Along with Arun Gandhi, the grandson of India’s legendary leader, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Beckwith is international co-chair of the Gandhi King Season for Nonviolence, which was launched at the United Nations in 1998 and is active in 900 cities across 67 countries.  About its mission, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said:  “Both Gandhi and Martin Luther King are inspiring examples of the power and truth of nonviolence and the actions that arise from them. The Season for Nonviolence is a very good tool to remind us of their witness, and also the large unfinished work we have together in transforming awareness on our planet.”

Each of us represents a universal presence that is always poised for an evolutionary leap in consciousness. Our part is to discover and activate it through our spiritual practices including meditation, affirmative prayer, and the Life Visioning Process.

This evening of Inspiration and Transformation will be followed by a book signing.

TICKETS:

General Admission $50
($65 after September 21)

Preferred Seating $70
($85 after September 21

Free Event: Writing as a Path to Awakening

A Stepping Stones Books and Gifts Free Event

an evening with author

Albert DeSilver

Date:  Friday, May 4

Time:  7 pm

Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa

2075 Occidental Road

Writing calls on us to fully engage our mind’s cognitive powers, while meditation asks us to let go of thinking and storytelling. Though these two practices may seem incompatible, Albert teaches us that they can be powerfully complimentary. With a mixture of engaging storytelling and practical exercises, Writing as a Path to Awakening invites you on a journey of growth and discovery—to enhance your writing through the practice of meditation, while using the creative process to accelerate your spiritual evolution.

Albert Flynn DeSilver is an American poet, memoirist, novelist, speaker and workshop leader. He received a BFA in photography from the University of Colorado in 1991 and an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1995. His work has appeared in over 100 literary journals worldwide. He is the author of several books of poems and the memoir Beamish Boy which Kirkus Reviews called "a beautifully written memoir...poignant and inspirational." Albert taught as a California Poet in the Schools more than a decade working with thousands of children throughout Northern California and beyond. He also served as Marin County's very first Poet Laureate.

Albert DeSilver's book  Writing as a Path to Awakening  is available from Stepping Stones Books and Gifts.

Please join us on May 4 for this enlightening presentation. This free event is sponsored by Stepping Stones Books and Gifts. No Reservations or Tickets are required.

Book Review: Living with Joy

Keys to Personal Power

 & Spiritual Transformation

An Orin Book by 

Sanaya Roman

Joy. I once heard a rabbi say that we have a spiritual mandate to express joy in the world. In her book Living with Joy, Sanaya Roman shows us how to free up the natural joy that lives within us. Through text, suggested exercises and a bounty of affirmations, Roman lifts us up into a greater experience of ourselves and our world. With an understanding that one prayer, one affirmation, one opening is not enough to shift us into living from a higher perspective, from our true self; she offers a myriad of approaches, whittling out our small view and expanding our idea and actual experience of who we are. As we become free of our limited perspectives, and open to our spiritual nature, joy is naturally released through us into our world.

Review by Rev. Ruth Barnhart, a staff minister at Center for Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa.

 Living with Joy is available from Stepping Stones Books and Gifts.

Free Event: ROCK AND WATER

A Stepping Stones Books and Gifts Free Event

an evening with author

Scott Cooper

Date:   Friday, February 23

Time:  7 pm
Center for Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa

2075 Occidental Road

Just as a stream peacefully wanders through the natural world, over, around, or between rocks, Rock and Water provides skills to help you more effectively navigate the obstacles of life. Author Scott Cooper introduces 18 basic skills for enhancing and sustaining happiness that will uphold and carry inner peace and happiness from one day to the next —skills that are based on his research in the fields of cognitive psychology and mindfulness/acceptance.

In his new book, Rock and Water, Scott maintains the strong point of view that happiness is not enhanced by more "talk" about happiness, but by applying these conscious "hands-on" techniques that help you to cope with the inner sources of unhappiness — the pesky unpleasant thoughts and feelings that can come to us even if our lives are going well on the outside.

Read a review of review by Rev. Ruth Barnhart, a staff minister at Center for Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa here.

ROCK AND WATER  by Scott Cooper is available from Stepping Stones Books and Gifts.

Please join us on February 23 and hear Scott discuss what he has found to enhance happiness. This free event is sponsored by Stepping Stones Books and Gifts. No Reservations or Tickets are required.

Book Review: ROCK AND WATER

The Power of Thought

The Peace of Letting Go

by Scott Cooper

‘Change your thinking’!  We have all heard this idea and have been assured of it’s benefits; but what exactly does it mean? How do we actually change our thinking? Scott Cooper, in his new book, ROCK AND WATER, breaks down the process. He looks at our moods and attitudes, invites us to investigate our core beliefs and shows us how to work with our mistaken ideas. Through bringing our beliefs and daily thoughts into awareness, he has us investigate what is skillful and desirable and what is not. And then he suggests and leads us through exercises that can help us shift  those thoughts and beliefs.

But he doesn’t stop there. Scott also brings awareness and investigation to the process of acceptance and surrender, the aspects of our nature that he equates to water. What and when do we need to stop trying to change? What do we have no power over or is just not worth our time and attention? And when we just accept and surrender in these areas, we can experience life flowing together between actively changing our thinking and letting go, to lead us to greater peace and happiness in our lives.

Review by Rev. Ruth Barnhart, a staff minister at Center for Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa.

ROCK AND WATER is available from Stepping Stones Books and Gifts.

Free Event: Ayurveda — A Spiritual Science

A Stepping Stones Books and Gifts Free Event

an evening with author

Dr. Helen Mary Thomas, D.C.

Date:   Friday, January 26

Time:  7 pm
Center for Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa

2075 Occidental Road

Ayurveda, the oldest known disease-prevention and health care system, is the original holistic medicine. It is based on a view of the world and of life that draws directly on nature. According to this view, the elements, forces, and principles that comprise all of nature-and that hold it together and make it function-are also seen in human beings. In Ayurveda the mind (or consciousness) and the body (or physical matter) not only influence each other-they are each other. 

Dr. Helen Mary Thomas is a practicing Doctor of Chiropractic who has studied Ayurveda since 1987 with Drs. Deepak Chopra, Vasant Lad, Raju and especially her mentor, Dr. Narendra Pendse, MD of Pune and Mumbai, India.   She has traveled extensively throughout India studying and working in Ayurvedic clinics and orphanages, and is the author of Ayurveda the A-Z Guide to Healing Techniques From Ancient India.

Please join us on January 26th.  This free event is sponsored by Stepping Stones Books and Gifts. No Reservations or Tickets are required.