Open Heart — Chester

4.9•31 ratings

About us

The meditations I lead are all about helping people have a direct experience in their mind and body. Through experiencing our own inner goodness, we can start to become clear about our true identity and purpose, as well as heal the psychological trauma and negative beliefs and attitudes that cause us so many problems in life.

Deep down what all people want is to be happy. But life is full of pain, and we are weighed down by all the emotional and psychological baggage we have picked up over time. This baggage keeps us living life as some distorted version of ourself, making us feel small, stressed, and with a sense of lack that won't go away.

Through guided meditation and mantra practice, in a short amount of time you can experience a glimpse of your own awakened nature, which is naturally radiant, calm, loving, and perfectly at ease.

Beneath the rigid walls of our ego lies our natural capacity to heal our weary hardened heart, see beauty and wonder in the world again, and to live in natural ease beyond our habitual fears.

Gradually, with regular practice, we begin to taste life without all this heaviness that pulls us down, as the layers of tension, confusion and attachment are dissolved in the light of our own loving awareness, and we begin to realise a sense of inner freedom.

This is possible even for you, because underneath it all you have pure awakened nature. There are examples of both men and women in our Sangha (spiritual community of Open Heart) who are married with children, and jobs to go to, who have had awakening experiences of both mind and heart, and come to know who they truly are — a lasting experience of total freedom and intimacy with the world.

I'm an Acharya (instructor) for Open Heart, a contemporary yogic lineage founded by Amrita Baba, that combines teachings from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Christianity, as well as Western psychotherapy and movement modalities, with a focus on techniques that work.

These healing meditations are good for people whatever your level of experience.

For those interested in taking this practice further, I offer teachings in the Buddhist and Hindu tantric paths of my lineage, as well as a practice that leads directly to non-dual awakening, and trauma healing practices.

If you have any questions, or want to know more but are unable to attend classes, feel free to direct message me.

May you be healed, healthy, happy, and free.
Nataraja
www.openheartofallbeings.com

A little of my story for you...

There is no joy in my life!

...This was the thought that arose in my mind in March 2012 that began me on a spiritual quest to find answers to this life.

Always anxious about a future that never materialised, regretting the past, and a present that seemed like it was pulled from underneath me. Where I used to find solid ground, now there was none, life was falling apart and I felt in freefall.

Having long rejected religion, I came across a Tibetan Buddhist monk called Matthieu Ricard, a former scientist turned monk who spent many decades in meditation retreats, and had taken part in a neuroscience study that showed he had extraordinary levels of well being, off the charts compared to anything they had studied before. There was clearly something to Tibetan Buddhism that our Western culture was ignorant of.

The following year in 2013 I met Matthieu, who by chance came to give a talk at my uncle’s church in Cambridge. Afterwards, when nearly everyone had left, he came up to me and my Mum and we had a lovely conversation. He had this glow about him, this relaxed, compassionate energy that radiated from his being that I had never witnessed before.

I followed his advice: let go of clinging to past and future and live more in the present; live ethically, with sincerity and honesty, and with an attitude of loving kindness; and meditate, especially on compassion.

My life changed radically and in a short space of time a lot of stress and clinging lifted from me. It took a few years, but eventually I found a spiritual community which really filled a deep need to share this spiritual journey with others and find a path.

However, we only truly know how well our path is going when we are tested by difficult times. In 2018 the proverbial rug was pulled from underneath me again. Afraid and desperate, I questioned everything: existence, my life, Buddhism. I was six years deep into meditation, often spending 3 or 4 hours a day practicing, and yet life was throwing me around like a rag doll, I had found no peace in my life!

Why wasn’t Buddhism working? I had devoted my whole life to this path expecting to experience the promised fruits of a calm, joyful, liberated mind, yet here I was in the darkest place of my life.

After much soul searching, I decided it wasn’t Buddhism or my efforts in practice that were to fault, but my practices: they weren’t delivering! I hadn’t yet found a genuine spiritual path, because a genuine path is meant to lead to awakening and inner freedom. So I went on a determined search.

Eventually I came across a book called “Record of Awakening” by Aloha David Smith, who had become a monk and awakened, before coming back to ordinary lay life. He wrote about his further awakenings that he called “progressing through the bhumis – the grounds of awakening”. He talked about his direct experience, and his surrender to the Dharma.

I was incredibly inspired, and after finishing the book in one evening, I contemplated for a while, and committed myself to “surrendering to the Dharma”, and that I too would go and become a monk, probably in Tibet, in order to give myself the best chance of awakening in this life.

Then I had the thought: why don’t I see if he is still teaching? It turns out he had died a few years before, but his students had found another teacher called Amrita Baba, who taught them an awakening practice, and they had all had awakenings! My mind was blown.

This was still an hour after reading the book and deciding to become a monk, but my true commitment was to awakening, so immediately I wrote an email asking for guidance.

5 weeks later, with guidance from Amrita Simha using the “Two-Part Formula to Awakening”, on November 11th 2019 I had my first awakening.

I was in a Buddhist study group listening to the others have some heated debate about something, and tuning out, because I found myself rather bored of where this discussion was going.

And suddenly — I was startled by an electric flash that shot up my nose!

At the same time a current of energy shot up my spine, and this light burst open in the centre of my head and everything became instantly calm, clear and peaceful.

The discussion in the group was still playing out, but my mind was silent and serene. No high euphoria or trumpets, just a deep sense of ease and subtle joy that pervaded my whole experience, and it was as if my awareness opened out 360 degrees.

As I walked home that evening, the wind rippled gently through the leaves on the trees and the clouds rolled gently across the sky, everything seemed to flow with delightful ease.

Clearly there was something to this practice. The blissful “honeymoon” period of awakening eventually fades, but this open awareness never leaves, and there is simply no more believing that there is a solid, permanent, separate “me” at the centre of our experience. Strong emotions persist, sometimes even louder than before because there is less suppressing them, yet one never loses this new found ground of awareness completely. Even though things can still get dark, there is always at least a small glimmer of light to be found.

Since then I began the rest of the Open Heart path, which has taken me through all 13 stages of awakening of mind on the path of wisdom and clarity, the main practice being Rainbow Body Yoga. And now my main focus is the path of healing and light, which works more with the emotional body and trauma, the path of heart awakening.

I’m a single man, so you might think I can do this because I am experienced and have time, but there are both men and women in our Sangha (spiritual community) who are married with children, have jobs to go to, who have also done this, some without much prior experience. Some have also finished the path of heart awakening as well, and realised perfect inner freedom from both mental and emotional afflictions. They have come to know who they truly are, a lasting experience of total freedom and intimacy with the world.

For me, there is a little way to go, but there is no happiness in awakening or attaining Enlightenment just for oneself, so this is where I offer my hand to you, if you are one of the rare ones who recognises this ongoing internal existential struggle, to see if you would like to come with me on this most extraordinary path?

Some of you I have met, and maybe I haven’t yet explained well enough the potential of these rare teachings and path. Most of you I have yet to meet, and it would be a shame if you didn’t get to taste the fruits and the freedom of these valuable teachings. So you are most welcome to come and explore and see if they are for you.

I have a way to go yet before I am any good as a teacher, but hopefully I am just about good enough to set you on the path and help show you the way. This is what I am here for.

If you have any questions, you are most welcome to ask.

Otherwise, come and join us in our classes in Chester.

Blessings to you for whatever path you chose in life,
Nataraja