Hridaya Yoga France designed this retreat to guide you to an intimate understanding of what meditation is so that you can experience the inner transformation that it kindles. It is a chance for you to give yourself a profound gift: silence.
In that silence, you can begin to perceive the peaceful and eternal core of your being, the source of all inspiration, love, and beauty - the spiritual heart.
Experienced teachers will share wisdom and inspiration from a variety of spiritual traditions and lead you in a step-by-step practice of self-inquiry - asking, “Who am I?” and opening to what arises.
Free from distractions and immersed in these teachings, you will begin to discover the truth within yourself. You will feel a greater sense of love, wholeness, and open-heartedness. And, you will emerge renewed, your life enriched with meaning, thanks to new spiritual perspectives.
Whether you have never meditated or have done many retreats, this retreat is for you. It is open to everyone. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced practitioner, Hridaya Yoga France invites you to join them and dive deep into the practice.
They encourage you to read their Hridaya silent meditation retreat guidelines (see below) to help you to decide if you feel ready and inspired to sit a retreat with them.
The retreat will begin the morning after the date of arrival and will end the evening before departure. Check-in will be available from 14:00 on the arrival day. Please plan to arrive in time to get settled into your accommodations before the orientation session, which will be at 18:00. It is not possible to join the retreat after 19:00 on the first day.
You will learn:
- Techniques for calming your mind, relaxing your body, and opening your heart
- Ramana Maharshi’s self-inquiry method (asking, “Who am I?”)
- Practices for centering in the spiritual heart and ways to infuse your daily life with its wisdom
- The fundamental principles of non-duality (the teaching that everything is one)
- Traditional, contemplative Hatha yoga
- Insights from Advaita Vedanta, Christianity, Buddhism, Sufism, and Kashmir Shaivism
Each day of the retreat will include:
- Four meditation sessions
- 90 minutes of Hridaya Hatha yoga
- Practical advice for going deeper into meditation
- Inspiring lectures on fundamental spiritual themes
- A question and answer session (with written questions)
The Hridaya Silent Meditation Retreat is a unique immersion experience that focuses on accessing one's real and essential nature, the supreme and divine self, atman, through an artful integration of meditation and yoga techniques.
During the retreat, participants will address broad aspects of the spiritual heart from a variety of traditions, including esoteric Christian, Sufi, and Kashmir Shaivism. The atmosphere will be one of agape and strong spiritual support.
The program aims to create an experience resembling a solitary retreat (such as in a cave) in order to provide an opportunity to reach deep states of consciousness, intense aspiration for the divine, and highly focused interiorization for the awakening and blossoming of the soul, jivatman. This method is a unique integration of Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Tantra, and Dzogchen.
In the advanced stages of practice, all paths of authentic spiritual traditions will meet harmoniously and merge into the same ineffable reality. During the Hridaya silent meditation retreat, practitioners will be skillfully guided to this penetrating understanding where the search for meaning ends in surrender to the domain of revelation.
No previous meditation or yoga experience is necessary as this retreat is designed for beginner and advanced meditators alike.
What are the purposes of this retreat?
During the retreat, Hridaya Yoga France's aim is to inform you about methods for meditation encompassing, but not limited to, the unity of consciousness and Advaita Vedanta, thus leading to self-discovery of the spiritual heart.
The system of meditation will focus on the methods developed by Ramana Maharshi, that of atma vichara, or more popularly known as the inquiry, “Who am I?,” as well as other complementary meditations and prayers.
Hridaya Yoga France aims to inform you about the practical and theoretical aspects of this methodology, allowing ample opportunities to directly put it into practice. In doing so, they hope that you will understand the underlying principles and value the purpose of meditation, thus reaping immediate benefits and coming to love meditation as an essential part of your life.
You will learn some direct methods to pacify your mind and even transcend it - when your mind is truly still and without any thoughts, and you transcend your ego, and you arrive at a place where you have no name, no social status, no relationships, no past, no future, no country, no spiritual attainment, and no lack of spiritual attainment. It is simply a presence of being.
If a movement or a thought appears in this stillness, it is enveloped in the stillness, thus becoming stillness itself. It is as if your life becomes full and saturated with this peace and sacredness.
You will also learn a way that comprises a vision, a spiritual understanding, and a method of transforming yourself. Hridaya Yoga France hopes that most of the participants will learn to love meditation as a means for discovering divine reality, otherwise referred to as god, although these methods are beyond any specific ideas of religion or any theoretical concepts about god.
They hope that most of the attendees will have some peak experiences about supreme reality, some special states of consciousness about cosmic love, eternity, or the unity of everything, which can be evoked afterward in daily life. This will help them in their quest to understand the reason for their existence.
Hridaya Yoga France's aim is for you to realize the importance of fully incorporating the spiritual heart in your life, beyond concepts, theory, and philosophy. The path to the spiritual heart journeys through your soul, and therefore, an opening and intimacy of the soul will naturally occur from this.
During this retreat, you will have the chance to venture deeper than the emotional, psychological level of the heart and into the divine reality, which represents the most profound aspect of the spiritual heart.
Ultimately, you will be compelled to love at a level that your ego usually prevents you from accessing through blockages such as attachments, ignorance, and other negative emotions, thoughts, and beliefs. To access this level of universal love, the obstacles challenging your personality and your ego must be transcended through accessing the spiritual heart.
The ultimate goal is for you to gain a profound understanding of the real nature of your existence and the nature of the manifestation of life and the universe.
More specifically, you will eventually achieve a coherent vision of divine unity, Advaita, and non-duality, which is the main revolutionary power, the main transforming idea of Jnana yoga, Advaita Vedanta, Taoism, Dzogchen, and Zen.
Cultivated attitudes
This method was crafted to cultivate the following attitudes:
- An inner awareness of all sensory perceptions and emotions which will gradually become, through sublimation, an awareness of the spiritual heart
- The calming down of the mind (a state of peace of mind)
- The polarization between the individual soul, jivatman, and the divine self, atman, that is experienced as a state of very strong and profound aspiration and longing for god
- The evocation of death of the physical body as a way of transcending desires and egotistical tendencies
- The act of powerfully evoking and experiencing the mystery of god’s presence inside your spiritual heart
Purification effects of the retreat
When you venture deeper than the surface of your ego and into the realm of the spiritual heart, it is common that some purification on the physical, mental, or emotional level can occur. This is merely the body’s way of releasing old blockages, traumas, and negative emotions in order to access the deeper levels of the soul. Do not be afraid. Do not avoid purification.
However, don’t dramatize. Don’t accord them too much importance. When those transformations eventually synthesize, meditation ceases to be boring, painful, or just a passing experience, and truly becomes a deep, joyful, and blissful experience.
Depending on the individual’s level of practice and awareness, these transformations can be immediate or can take a longer time to process. However, change is inevitable and this transformation can be very stable and profound and can transform your life dramatically.
Expectations
So, what expectations does Hridaya Yoga France need to have from the retreat? None! Because of the ineffability of what people really are, of what divine reality is, this change is a natural progression that comes from stillness, surrender, and, ultimately, from within your true self.
The aim is to create the best conditions in which the divine reality will be revealed in your heart. From doing this, you will experience some profound effects from these meditations.
Many make the mistake of becoming attached to these effects and realizations. However, do not cling to them. In the openness of your being, much more than this is happening, and you will learn to accept, surrender, and be open to the ebb and flow of these realizations.
The spiritual heart, your real home
Ultimately, the most important outcome of this retreat is for you to start becoming accustomed to centering in the spiritual heart. This means to get used to and be aware of that quiet, peaceful, infinite, and eternal foundation of your being, which cannot be perceived by the rational mind, but is the source of all inspiration, love, beauty, and spiritual life.
Many sages have said that the spiritual heart is your real home. So abandon yourself, trust, and enjoy this centering. The spiritual heart is your axis, your hub.
During this retreat, be at home, be present, and integrate this practice fully for an intimate and meaningful experience. The spiritual heart is the “meeting place” for those who wish to relate to life in a sacred manner.
Methods, techniques, and teachings
This retreat includes advice for guided meditation, lectures, and practical methods such as:
- Ramana Maharshi’s method of introspection (self-inquiry, atma vichara, using the question, “Who am I?”)
- Techniques of stilling the mind using breath awareness
- Study of the symbolism of the spiritual heart
- Methods of self-centering in everyday life
- Advice for maintaining awareness of the spiritual heart, in the tradition of the fathers and mothers of the desert (from Christianity )
- The Christian method of the prayer of the heart
- A proper understanding of Advaita Vedanta’s fundamental principles
- Methods of passing from individual consciousness to cosmic consciousness
- The four fundamental aspects of the ineffable process of revealing the spiritual heart
- Daily special meditations on themes connected with self-revelation
- Yogic methods that approach the issue of the spiritual heart
- Poetry
- Hatha yoga sessions
Hridaya silent meditation retreat guidelines
1. Voluntary restraint
A meditation retreat is an extraordinary situation (although meditation is actually perfectly normal). A large group of people must live together in very simple conditions while relating to each other in a completely new way. There, you relate through the common experience of meditation, with all its pains and joys, discoveries and frustrations.
For 10 days, your lifestyle is built around a common purpose rather than more selfish purposes promoted by the world today.
To accomplish this in harmony, you must agree on certain conventions. The most important are mindful silence, giving way to others, sticking to the schedule, and following instructions.
This retreat is arranged as a serious opportunity for serious aspirants who wish for a very special and exclusive retreat experience.
Please approach these guidelines with this frame of mind, with an openness toward protecting and supporting this atmosphere through your own agreement and cooperation. If you at first glance feel that the guidelines are too strict or too difficult for you, first consider your own state of readiness to participate.
If you do indeed feel ready, then inspire yourself with the understanding that this retreat lasts just a few days in the big picture of life!
2. Mauna (silence)
Mauna is compulsory. The period of mauna will begin on the first morning, with the consecration of the retreat, and will end after the last meditation on the last day of the retreat. Absolutely no talking by participants will be allowed. For any real necessities, please inform the Retreat Coordinator in writing of administrative problems.
Much energy and ego go into your speech. You say things that don’t need to be said, are silly, gossipy, or even harmful. This not only makes the world noisy, but it also makes your own minds noisy. If there is nobody to talk to you just chatter away to yourselves. In meditation, this can be an annoying hindrance.
So you keep silent by not speaking or passing notes to each other during the retreat, in order to quiet your minds and maintain a quiet, peaceful environment for everyone. This can be difficult at times, but most people find it a powerful and wonderful experience.
Many people travel from far away to Hridaya Yoga because they cherish this silence, so you respect each other by maintaining the silence with mindfulness and wisdom. Even training yourself to walk, move, and do things quietly leads to a calm and graceful experience.
It is also important not to judge or project opinions onto others. Developing self-discipline and a compassionate understanding of all things is part of the training.
3. No use of any electronics or media
Retreat participants are asked not to use CD players, MP3 players, radios, TVs, DVD players, the Internet, or computers for the duration of the retreat. Thus, there is to be no listening to the news or music, doing email, watching movies, etc.
4. Mobile phones
No use of mobile phones is allowed during the retreat. They should ideally be left at home and off for the retreat’s duration. Participants should make a firm commitment not to use the phone for conversations, SMS messages, etc., for the duration of the retreat.
5. Reading
Reading is not allowed, not even books of a spiritual nature. Please agree not to read during this retreat. Through the retreat practice, you aim to focus inward as much as possible, and reading can lead you away from strong interiorization, diffusing your efforts and experience in the process.
Keeping silent includes putting away books you’ve brought along or keeping them closed throughout the retreat. You will get plenty of information while you are on the retreat. Reading will be a distraction, possibly confusing you, possibly taking you away from the purpose of this retreat.
You will have all the time you want to read when you leave. You also request that you stop writing, except for notes taken during talks and impressions of meditative experiences that you may record in your retreat journal. Letter writing and creative writing will take the mind away from your purpose there.
6. Sexual abstinence
Sexual abstinence is mandatory. This really means celibacy and not Tantric continence! This point is obviously non-enforceable (they cannot check on you, of course), but is insisted upon to reinforce the atmosphere resembling solitude that you are attempting to create for participants.
If you wish to join the retreat, please agree to abide by this requirement for the duration of the retreat.
7. Recommendation about fasting
Fasting is not recommended for the entire duration of the retreat (although your own tapas of a weekly fasting day is okay), in order to maintain a high level of vitality and energy for meditation.
8. An attitude of solitude
It is recommended that you aim to cultivate a state of experience resembling solitude by agreeing not to: look at others, touch, hug, kiss, say hello (even nonverbally), smile at each other, etc. This can at times feel alienating and lonely for people who are very sociable and miss such simple human contact, but it will drastically help your experience of interiorization.
In addition, the opening of the soul will offer you the opportunity to communicate in a much subtler way, through the language of love. Your friends will still love you at the end of the retreat, maybe even more.
9. A safe place in the meditation hall
Designated seating areas in the hall for men and women are meant to keep sensory distractions to a minimum during the retreat.
Although some people may find this unnecessary as the retreat’s teachings point to non-duality (which includes going beyond any gender identification), many reports that it increases their sense of security (as they are free from random glances with potential sexual connotations) and, thus, allows them to go deeper in meditation.
When you enter the hall for the orientation session, you will find that it is temporarily split into “Male” and “Female” sections by a cloth divider. Please choose a spot, understanding that it is where you will sit for the duration of the retreat.
Note that to release any sense of separation and honor other gender identities, they will remove the divider on the first day, after all, participants are accustomed to their spots. Changing your position in the hall after this time will only be possible with the support of the Retreat Coordinator.
If the hall you are doing the retreat in has two entrances, please exclusively use the door that corresponds to your section.
Hridaya Yoga strongly recommends that romantic partners book separate accommodations for the retreat. They suggest a private room (best for solitude), an on-site dorm, or sharing accommodation with a friend.
10. Dress
The way in which both women and men dress should be in accordance with common sense. Additionally, please do not wear makeup or perfume.
11. Photographs
Please limit your looking at photographs to those of spiritual masters and gurus only. Do not gaze upon photos of your friends, family, etc. in order to help yourself concentrate on transcendental states rather than worldly thoughts.
12. Cigarettes
It is not allowed to smoke during this retreat. Please commit to not smoking for the duration of these 10 days if you intend to join.
13. Meditation notebook
It is recommended that participants record their meditative and daily experiences in a notebook. This retreat journal can help you not only to push through any challenging moments but can serve to inspire you and provide a point of reference for your growth during the retreat period.
A meditation notebook helps you to objectify your experiences and what you understand during meditation. It can bring inspiration to you even after the retreat. Reading it afterwards can be a powerful support in daily life.
14. Following the schedule
The schedule you follow is very moderate compared to some meditation retreats which start the day before dawn. The day includes approximately six to 6.5 hours of meditation, 1.5 to 1.75 hours of Hatha yoga practice, and two to 2.25 hours of inspiring spiritual talks or question and answer.
Please agree to join all sessions and activities of the retreat if you will sign up for it.
15. Being late
Everyone must be on time for all spiritual activities, as lateness is very disruptive and latecomers will not be allowed to join until the next session. Please plan accordingly.
If you find yourself late for a meditation session, please do not sneak into the hall in the hopes that you will not be noticed or will not disturb others. Instead, please be considerate and wait without any undue noise, meditating outside the hall during the session and entering only during the next break.
16. Retreat monitors
The Hridaya Silent Meditation Retreat includes retreat monitors just like Zen monasteries do in order to discourage violations of the rules, motivate diligence and attention during the meditation sessions, and to help retreat, participants, feel supported.
A female teacher will sit in the women’s section of the meditation hall and will observe the women participating in the retreat, and likewise, a male teacher will sit in the men’s section and will observe the male retreat participants.
Participants who are nodding / sleeping, positioned improperly, talking, entering late, using mobile phones, disregarding segregated areas, moving about, or being generally disruptive will be noted by the monitors on the session report and the retreat leader will be alerted.
Monitors may make suggestions to participants for better practice or may remind attendees of various rules and guidelines.
However, it is the retreat leader who will give warnings if they become necessary.
17. Warnings and expulsion from the retreat
Please be advised that certain actions constitute grounds for expulsion from the retreat. The following actions will constitute grounds for a warning:
- Absence from a retreat session
- Being late to a retreat session
- Falling asleep during meditations
- Disregarding segregated areas for men and women
- Talking, making other sounds, or being generally disruptive
- Listening to music, news, sending SMS messages, or talking on the phone
- Disregard for any other of the above-mentioned rules
Hridaya Yoga France would like to re-emphasize that the retreat guidelines must be followed, for the benefit of all participants. Consider carefully before joining whether you truly accept the parameters of the retreat and its rules.
If a person has already received two warnings, he or she will be asked to leave without hesitation or negotiation after the third infraction of the rules. No refunds will be given to those who choose to leave or are asked to leave.
In exceptional cases, a very disruptive participant failing to abide by the rules and requirements may be told to leave without the benefit of several warnings. In such cases, when the participant is willing to follow the rules, he or she may be welcome to return. Such decisions will be made solely at the discretion of the Retreat Leader and are non-negotiable.
18. Fans
When appropriate, Hridaya Yoga France may turn on fans in the meditation hall. Some people love to be near a fan and others do not enjoy them at all. If you are someone who doesn’t like fans, sit in an area where the breeze won’t reach you. In this way, everyone can be comfortable.
Conclusion
Hridaya Yoga France welcomes you to this exceptional retreat and hopes that you will choose to be patient and open. The first several days, as anyone who has done a meditation retreat knows, can be full of restlessness, muscular fever and aches, physical and mental purification, and various spiritual tests.
They invite you to commit yourself fully to this retreat, stay firm, and double your resolve in the face of such challenges. Try to make this event a very special opportunity for your spiritual evolution!
Daily schedule:
- 07:00 - 09:00 Meditation (beginning in shorter segments)
- 09:00 - 09:45 Breakfast break
- 09:45 - 11:00 Lecture
- 11:00 - 12:30 Hatha yoga
- 12:30 - 13:00 Meditation
- 13:00 - 14:00 Lunch
- 14:00 - 14:45 Karma yoga
- 14:45 - 16:00 Break
- 16:00 - 18:30 Meditation (beginning in shorter segments)
- 18:30 - 19:30 Dinner
- 19:30 - 21:00 Daily themed spiritual discourse and question and answer
- 21:00 - 21:30 Meditation (may go later depending on the length of question and answer)
The schedule is subject to change. The course will begin the morning after the date of arrival and will end on the evening before departure.
