Workshops and Special Events
Summer 2011

During summer months at SALC there has been an ongoing ( since 1994 ) series of workshops devoted to the writings of Sri Aurobindo
and the Mother. The primary area of study and learning has been through the Savitri Immersion workshops that have been led by Rod Hemsell.
These workshops have explored Sri Aurobindo's epic poem, Savitri, and the mantra that is discovered in the voiced reading of its words.

The complete text of Savitri .

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For the summer of 2011 we will experience a departure from the usual Savitri Workshops as The Sri Aurobindo Learning Center
begins its explorations into other aspects of Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's work and teachings
and experience some exciting and illuminating new retreats and workshops. Please come explore with us.



P4120228_2 SolarDome1

Integral Soundscapes Intensive
at the
Sri Aurobindo Learning Center
Crestone, Colorado


Calling all vibrational beings (yes, that’s you)!

 Tuesday, July 26th, 5PM through Sunday July 31st at noon.

The Sri Aurobindo Learning Center is hosting a potent retreat experience during the last week of July called an Integral Soundscapes Intensive. We have some talented people who will guide our exploration of sound/vibration, including Leigh Ann Phillips and her incredible crystal bowls, Jillian Klarl Ellzey leading a powerful practice called Yoga of the Voice, as well as kirtan; and renowned artist Marika Popovitz exploring the sound of color. Other planned activities include the yoga mantra of Savitri, sounding with instruments, listening to Nature, the sound of silence, Qi Gong & breathing, feeling into the vibrational qualities of food and variously treated water, and a full moon Chi practice and moonwalk at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

The intention for this gathering is a kind of research – a deep and potent exploration and discovery of the impacts of sound and vibration, both audible and subtle. We ask you to bring a journal to record your experiences, as well as any instruments you want to add to the soundscape.

In order to concentrate attention, we will remain in silence from 6AM to 6 PM each day, except for presenters and any focused inquiry or sounding that is evoked by them.

Timing: Tuesday, July 26th, 5PM through Sunday July 31st at noon.

Accommodation: Limited housing options are available at the Center (call for details) and there is camping and many B&B’s in the area. We will do our best to help you find a suitable arrangement

Cost: $235 includes all meals (vegetarian) from Tuesday dinner to Sunday breakfast. There will be a small additional fee for art supplies.

The number of participants will be limited, so reserve your space soon!
A $50 deposit will hold your space, and is fully refundable through July 15th 2011.
Please let us know about any dietary restrictions when you register.

For more information or to register:
Phone: 719-256-4917
Email: sriaurobindolc@gmail.com
Snail mail: SALC, PO Box 88,
Crestone, CO 81131
Website: www.sriaurobindolc.org

Previous Workshops



Sri Aurobindo Learning Center “Savitri Immersion Workshops – 2009”
 
The third in a series of three workshops at the Sri Aurobindo Learning Center finished on August 15th, the birthday of Sri Aurobindo and also the anniversary of Indian Independence, celebrated as Seyril, founder of the center, would have liked best – with a feast and a cake. One of the secret highlights of the sessions was in fact the exceptional quality of the food, prepared daily and often spontaneously by a talented assortment of participants from all over: India, France, California, Canada, Kentucky, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas… the spiritual footprint of Crestone is still growing!



 Summer workshop 2009

August 2009 workshop participants in front of Solar Mediation Dome


 
Although these Savitri retreats have been happening annually since the early nineties, usually in August, this is the first time that we have held three in one summer, and this has had the advantage - surely be appreciated by other centers and teachers - of allowing us to be exposed to a more thorough, in-depth treatment of the vision and yoga-teaching of Sri Aurobindo. The full intention of his teaching could be grasped better like this, to an extent often not possible for students even after many years of study, because of both the scope and intensity implied by the persistent exposure to a mantric transmission, renewed monthly, and assimilated over a period of several weeks by many participants. The purpose was not only for the participants to be brought face to face with the intention of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga of transformation, but also to make the real purpose of “Savitri” – as a mantric invocation of the divine Word - easily accessible and effective for new students as well as long-time devotees.
 
The process was generally spontaneous, harmonious and fun, as it turned out, with opportunities for self expression through music, dance and painting, as well as cooking, in addition to deep meditation. Frequent references to parallels between the yoga of Savitri and other schools and practices of Buddhism and Hinduism were pleasantly reinforced by visits to the Haidakhandi Universal Ashram, the Tashi Gomang Stupa, and Dragon Mountain Zen Center. And a bonus, appreciated by many in the community, were the extra activities provided by visiting Aurovilians – Aurelio’s Om Choir, and Olivier’s dance workshop and his presentation of an alternative economic structure. Participation by friends from Auromesa in Taos and nearby Hummingbird Ranch, in New Mexico, will hopefully weld a more permanent tie between these centers and ours, strengthening the Auroville family and network in this region. Two other factors of the demographics of these workshops that were especially heartening were the increased participation by members of the local community, and the presence of three young PhD candidates from entirely different backgrounds – the former mostly graying but the latter very vibrantly headed for a wonderful future. The future is of course the focus of Sri Aurobindo’s light, and the participation of these diverse groups was one of many signs that it is definitely there, spiritually positive, and waiting on the horizon, drawing us luminously, ineluctably forward.
 
Rod Hemsell

Summer-workshop-2010
August 2010 workshop



Spirit and Word – An Exploration of the Poetry of Sri Aurobindo

Crestone, Colorado, August 1-6 and 22-27, 2010


One purpose of these workshops, and of the accompanying poetry notebook The Poetry of Sri Aurobindo – Mantra, Metrics and Meaning, is to explore this theory of poetry through a close reading of The Future Poetry, and to discover and experience what this poetry really means.

When we read with the eye and filter the meaning through our highly conditioned mental instrument, we do not either hear or see the real meaning. So there must come into play another kind of reading in which rhythmic speech conveys the truth directly to the hearing and vision – shruti and smriti in the Sanskrit. This is the purpose of the poetic technique developed by Sri Aurobindo.

We begin to see and feel levels of consciousness and force carried to us through mantric speech, of which we are not normally aware. And it is possible that these realities of force and consciousness can become permanent vibrational structures in us that can transform our minds and lives. The force that descends in response to the call of Savitri is - at the very least – an experiential demonstration of the prophetic truth of the poem itself, as stated in the line: “A few shall see what none yet understands”.

Summer-workshop-2-2010Crestone2010217
 Summer 2010 workshop trip to the Tashi Gomang Stupa.




Spirit and Word

Spirit, what we call spirit first manifests through sound and eventually through speech and meaning. Why do we say this, rather than something more traditional like spirit originally is breath, the finest element? The answer is because we mean by spirit essentially the truth of what is, its essence, or being. And this meaning implies the development of human consciousness, which has followed certain paths. From the most primitive or basic human sounds, or natural sounds, to the most sophisticated descriptions and theories, sound has helped us see spatially and temporally, beyond what our eyes can see in an immediate focused field. Sound guides consciousness or creates consciousness, vibrationally and through meaning, that covers a vaster field of space and time than the other senses can perceive.

It is therefore through sound, and especially the expression of speech and language, that we become aware of the connectedness of things in time and space, and eventually of logic, truth, logos. It is a matter of metaphysical speculation, or perhaps occult vision, whether sound or logos was prior to human intelligence or even to cosmic manifestation. But in any case, we can be sure that it has been instrumental in forming our mental conceptions of things and our ability to communicate our understanding in very precise ways.

The problem of course as recognized by spiritual seers for millennia, and as explored fully by the science of phenomenology is that what we see and express as our understanding is largely an illusion because our mental, conceptual, representative understanding of things is only partial, limited by our perceptions, our conditioning, our intelligence. The real truth of things is vaster, more complex, more powerful. And at this point of our development and realization we can grasp these inherent limitations of mind and its expressions. Phenomenology identifies our constrained, conceptual and impressionistic way of understanding things with the term enframing. But of course human beings have also discovered higher forms of expression through music and mantric speech, which can go beyond the framework of mental understanding if one has the vision and power. This is what we are exploring with Savitri.

According to Sri Aurobindo, no age of human development has been so far from understanding this higher potentiality of language and expression than ours, and yet he devoted much of his life to changing this situation. His teaching says that thought is prior to language and not dependent on it. And higher than thought is the Real Idea or Truth-Consciousness, which all our sense faculties have been evolved to perceive and express. In other words, sight and hearing and thought and speech are created by Consciousness, and not the other way around. Therefore, he says, it is possible to rise above mind and its instrumentations into realms of pure thought and Truth, and to use the evolved instruments of mind and speech to convey Reality itself the being of things. This is the potentiality of mantric speech.

One purpose of this workshop, and of the poetry notebook which explores this theory through a close reading of The Future Poetry, is for us to come to a direct understanding and experience of what this means. And since Sri Aurobindo has developed the technique of mantric poetry to convey the reality of spiritual consciousness and the inner reality of all the planes of manifestation and all their outer forms and experiences, we should be initiated by it into a consciousness of these things that are beyond our normal mental understanding. We should become capable of a more direct vision of the truth of things especially spiritual things, but also all kinds of things themselves. Sri Aurobindo points out that he is using mantric poetry and the epic form not only to convey the realty of gods and higher spiritual truth, which has been the case in the past, but also to convey the inner truth and reality of man and nature and life and the material creation.

Now, he has explained that the technique he has developed for achieving this is primarily based on sound and rhythm. Therefore, he says, the eye cant get it. When we read with the eye and filter the meaning through our highly conditioned mental instrument, we do not either hear or see the real meaning. So there must come into play another kind of reading in which rhythmic speech conveys the truth directly to the hearing and vision shruti and smriti in the Sanskrit.

Our next purpose, and also Sri Aurobindos purpose in writing this poetry, is to become conscious of higher planes of truth and force and how they can be brought down into mind and life to transform them. That is the aim of Integral Yoga and Savitri is the revelation and teaching of that path. Therefore we begin to see and feel levels of consciousness and force carried to us through this rhythmic speech, of which we are not normally aware. And it is possible that these realities of force and consciousness can become permanent vibrational structures in us that can transform our minds and lives. The force that descends here in response to the call of Savitri is at the very least a demonstration of the prophetic truth of Savitri itself, for example in such lines as: A few shall see what none yet understands

We do not really understand, nor do we need to understand what is happening here, in the conventional sense. We need only to see the reality of it and associate ourselves with its truth and force in order to be on this path of transformation.

Crestone
Rod Hemsell
July 2009




For more Immersion and workshop photos click on :-).