The Great Pilgrimage from Head to Heart

The Great Pilgrimage from Head to Heart

With John Prendergast  •  Saturdays Feb 8, 15, 22 & 29, 2020 at 10am PST

A 4-part Webinar Series

Recordings of this webinar session can be found in the MODULES tab.

Please join John Prendergast as we experientially explore and awaken the depths of the heart area–a multidimensional center of remarkable sensitivity, feeling, and knowing. This is the sacred pilgrimage of attention from the head to the heart–what we most want in life.

The "Deep Heart" refers to three distinct dimensions along a single spectrum:

  • The level of early psychological conditioning that was influenced by our relationships with our primary caregivers and early life experiences. It is here that our core limiting beliefs (such as "I am unlovable" "I am unworthy" "I am not enough" or "I am flawed") are stored with their related feelings of shame, unworthiness, and self-doubt, along with a range of subtle somatic contractions. This domain is the primary focus of depth psychotherapy and is often numbed or walled off because it was too painful or overwhelming to bear when we were little.
  • The soul level - an intermediary area of profound personal intimacy, archetypes, essential qualities such as love, compassion, and gratitude, as well as expansive states of consciousness.
  • The great or universal Heart, that is impersonal, non-localized, whole, and undivided from the totality of life.

In four sessions with Prendergast we will: 

  • Experientially explore the depths of the heart area with an intention to be intimate rather than to change our experience
  • Explore a form of heart-felt meditative inquiry that Prendergast has refined over several decades of working one-on-one and in groups
  • Learn to sit with an essential question and/or to question our core limiting beliefs rather than going to our conventional thinking for an answer
  • Tap into heart-wisdom that responds via subtle felt-sensing
  • Learn to recognize ourselves as the great heart–whole and undivided within ourselves and between ourselves and the totality of life
  • Discover that it is increasingly safe to express our true nature in intimate relationships as well as everyday life
  • Explore the roles of the illumined mind (clarity) and hara (spacious groundedness) that support the full expression of the deep heart

Through guided and silent meditations, heart-felt meditative inquiry, talks and conversations we will uncover and be with these unfolding dimensions of our heart. There is a natural movement between attuning with Presence (being aware of awareness) and meeting our deeply embedded conditioning. The more that we can access heart-felt Presence, the more we can intimately welcome our conditioning as it is. This facilitates a natural opening up and letting go, which in turn allows an easier, more stable access to Presence.

Learn more about John Prendergast's new book.

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Module 1: Exploring the Heart Area with Innocent, Affectionate Attention

Feb 8, 2020 10:00am - 11:30am PST

We will experientially explore the depths of the heart area with an intention to be intimate rather than to change our experience. Having an agenda to change our experience always engenders resistance. All of our frozen and exiled parts are waiting to be met with clear, affectionate attention, with love and understanding.

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Module 2: Discovering Heart-felt Meditative Inquiry

Feb 15, 2020 10:00am - 11:30am PST

We will explore a form of heart-felt meditative inquiry that I have refined over several decades of working one-on-one and in groups with students and clients and learn to sit with an essential question and/or to question our core limiting beliefs, not going to our conventional thinking for an answer. Instead we will tap into heart-wisdom that responds via subtle felt-sensing. By tapping into this different and essential "operating system" we catalyze a spontaneous transformative process characterized by an experience of melting, releasing, integrating, and opening up.

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Module 3: Letting the Great Heart Hold the Human Heart

Feb 22, 2020 10:00am - 11:30am PST

We learn to first attune with the sense of Presence–awake, loving, awareness–and then welcome the conditioned heart into it. As we allow both dimensions of the heart to consciously co-exist and feel ourselves held by something greater, we experience a natural unfolding. The light of awareness begins to saturate denser levels of body/mind conditioning. As this process deepens, the apparent gap between the great heart and the human heart gradually lessens and eventually dissolves and we come to recognize ourselves as the great heart–whole and undivided within ourselves and between ourselves and the totality of life.

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Module 4: Learning to Safely Shine: Resting in and as the Heart of Awareness in Ordinary Life

Feb 29, 2020 10:00am - 11:30am PST

As we learn to fall back into and as the field of infinite, loving, wakeful awareness, we discover that it is increasingly safe to express our true nature in intimate relationships as well as everyday life; we recognize that the deepest dimension of the heart does not need protection. We will also explore the roles of the illumined mind (clarity) and hara (spacious groundedness) that support the full expression of the deep heart.

John Prendergast

John J. Prendergast, Ph.D., is the author of In Touch: How to Tune into the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself (Sounds True, 2015) and the senior editor of The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom andPsychotherapy (2003) and Listening from the Heart of Silence (2007). He is also the Editor -in-Chief of Undivided: The Online Journal ofNonduality and Psychology at www.undividedjournal.com. He offers workshops, retreats, and several self-inquiry groups. He is a psychotherapist in private practice and a retired Adjunct Professor of Psychology at CIIS. www.listeningfromsilence.com