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				Inward Bound: A Pathless Journey Into the Self In January, 2003, after fifteen years of facilitating councils and retreats in Hawai'i, Europe, Australia, the Americas and New Zealand, and three years of profound personal disillusionment, Rashani began offering month long retreats on the Big Island of Hawai'i. She held her first 3 month retreat in the fall of 2005 and will be offering similar retreats in the future. Inward Bound, this pathless exploration of non-dual awareness, is an opportunity to meet the vastness and essence of who we are while attending to the details of everyday life. We nurture and are nurtured by the land and have the opportunity to experience more clearly what is occurring within and around us moment to moment. The illusion of separation become increasingly apparent.
				During periods of silence and in the midst of personal     interactions, whatever core issues need attending       inevitably arise and are welcomed in the spaciousness       of unconditional presence. There is an effortless action         that begins to happen when we drop agendas and methods           and abide in the unknown.             Who are we without the need to effort towards               something? What happens when we let go of resisting                 or confronting what we are experiencing?  What occurs                   when we drop the habit of labeling our experience?                     Inward Bound is an invitation to explore timeless time.                        What has previously been perceived as an obstacle or                          limitation often becomes an opening into a more inclusive                          awareness or is simply deconstructed in the alchemy                           of direct experience. All paths, teachings and beliefs fall                            away and that which is deeper than any habitual behavior                             organically reveals itself.                             Surrendering into the stream of sustained inquiry, we                             discover that total freedom is possible without having                             to change outer circumstances. We meet who we are                             without needing to be in control.                              Rashani shares: "I was amazed to discover how                             quickly a bonsai tree grew when it was removed from                             its shallow pot and transplanted into the earth. A similar                             blossoming occurs in people who cultivate unconditional                             presence. Gradually, the unconditioned mind infuses                              the conditioned mind like a fragrance of light."                             Some groups prefer more structure and others want to                             explore structurelessness. Past groups have enjoyed                             formal sessions of walking, sitting and singing meditation,                             edgu, yoga, authentic movement and dance, journal                              writing, sharing in dyads and with the group, as well as                             less structured time for doing nothing, following the                             currents of the moment, communing with the land and                              animals, spontaneous drumming and poetry circles,                              sharing dreams, reading, etc. Each participant receives                             two sessions per week with Rashani.
					A poem by Rashani for the participants of the 9th Inward Bound retreat:
					When does a cloud become a cloud? At what moment does the cluster of molecules gather into a distinguishable form? How does a flower change into fruit? White, delicate petals into guava, lavender, stellar bursts into pineapple, multi-colored mandalas into passion fruit like fertile eggs dipped into vats of sunlight, hanging, then falling from wild vines onto my garden path. At what moment does the deluded mind navigate towards its source, unveiling itself into awakening? How does pain transfigure itself back into aliveness? How does the husk of personality relinquish its eons of conditioning, returning one to essence? Sheer mystery that this exhausted and cluttered mind can be infused with its true nature, can spill effortlessly back through itself in less than a ration of time. At what moment did the river of grace draw my essence into yours, yours into mine?
			Having lost so much I am beginning to glimpse what cannot be lost.
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			© Rashani   P.O. Box 916   Na'alehu, HI  96722    808 929-8043   rashanirea@yahoo.com
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