Introduction to Nonduality

Adyashanti is a spiritual teacher from the Bay Area. He embarked on his spiritual journey at 19, influenced by Zen Buddhism and experienced profound awakenings that led him to teach. He emphasizes a direct, tradition-free approach to truth and liberation. He is the author of eleven books, with his teachings reaching over 30,000 people worldwide. Today, Adyashanti lives in the Eastern Sierras with his wife, Mukti, also a spiritual teacher.

Without either diploma or culture, Éric Baret has no special competence. Touched by the non-dual tradition through Jean Klein’s teaching, he suggests that one turn towards listening, free of any notion of gain. Nothing taught, no teacher. Meetings for the joy of being nothing.

Deepak Chopra, M.D is the author of more than 70 books, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His medical training is in internal medicine and endocrinology, and he is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and an adjunct professor of Executive Programs at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University Columbia Business School, adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, Columbia University, and a Senior Scientist at the Gallup organization. For more than a decade, he has participated as a lecturer at the Update in Internal Medicine, an annual event sponsored by Harvard Medical School’s Department of Continuing Education and the Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Dorothy Hunt serves as Spiritual Director of Moon Mountain Sangha, teaching at the request of Adyashanti. She is the founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy and has practiced psychotherapy since 1967. She is the author of Leaves from Moon Mountain, Only This!, and Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness. Dorothy has a long and deep connection to the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and the path of Self-Inquiry, as well as the nondual teachings of Zen, Advaita and the Christian mystics. In meeting Adyashanti, she was invited beyond identification with either the absolute or relative, finding freedom in what is awake in each of us regardless of the changing faces of experience. Dorothy offers satsang, retreats, and private meetings in the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere by invitation.

Loibon Ol Doinyo Laetoli le Baaba is of Maasai descent, born, raised, and self-educated in America. He has reclaimed his tribal-aboriginal identity and cultural heritage as a shaman, teacher, and medicine keeper.

Sally Kempton (1943-2023)  was a celebrated teacher of meditation, Tantra, and the Divine Feminine. Sally was known for her exceptional ability to make ancient spiritual wisdom relatable and practical for modern times. Her work was informed not only by her keen intelligence but also by her many decades of devoted, intensive, traditional spiritual practice. With the profound influence of her lineage, Sally’s teachings carry a unique transmission that permeates every aspect of her groundbreaking work.

Richard Rohr, OFM is an American Franciscan priest and writer on spirituality based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Shantena Augusto Sabbadini worked as a theoretical physicist at the University of Milan and at the University of California. In Milan he researched the foundations of quantum physics, focusing on the description of the quantum process of observation, a problem that keeps fascinating him up to the present. In California he contributed to the first identification of a black hole.

From an early age Rupert Spira was deeply interested in the nature of reality. At the age of seventeen he learnt to meditate, and began studying and practicing the teachings of the classical Advaita Vedanta tradition under the guidance of Dr. Francis Roles and Shantananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of the north of India, which he continued for the next for twenty years. During this time he immersed himself in the teachings of P.D.Ouspensky, J. Krishnamurti, Rumi, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta and Robert Adams, until he met his teacher, Francis Lucille, in 1997. Francis introduced Rupert to the Direct Path teachings of Atmanada Krishnamenon; Jean Klein and the tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism; and, more importantly, directly indicated to him the true nature of experience.

Kazuaki Tanahashi is an accomplished Japanese calligrapher, Zen teacher, author, and translator of Buddhist texts from Japanese and Chinese to English, most notably works by Dogen.

Stephen H. Wolinsky, Ph.D., (Narayan) is a direct disciple of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and lived in India and Asia for more than six years. He has been teaching self-inquiry and Tantric Kashmir Shaivism from 1982 to present.