Here is the vision for the centre I would like to help create with others, or join with others already in community with similar aims and values:

Shakti Interspiritual Centre For Integrated Spiritual and Social Transformation

Vision:

The Shakti Centre is a vision for a living community and learning centre for conscious evolution, with the aim of effecting both inner and global healing from a fulcrum of deep spiritual realization of our interconnection and unity with each other and all of creation. Recognizing our Oneness with the unified field of Consciousness that gives rise to all that is, our work is both to deepen our connection with its eternal Essence and actively co-create with it in its evolving expressions, helping to shape the future of humanity and the planet at this critical time of quantum transformation.

 The Centre would serve as a convergence point for several important movements emerging today: interspirituality, integral spirituality, engaged and evolutionary spirituality, including the integration of feminine, interconnective values into the collective global consciousness. All of these movements bridge divides: between the diverse spiritual traditions, spirituality and psychology, spirituality and social change, spirituality and science, East and West, men and women. Collectively, they are part of a larger movement today – a quantum leap in consciousness and humanity’s evolution -- towards greater integration, interconnection and Oneness, the recognition of the core spiritual truth of unity-in-diversity, and its application at all levels of our global society.

 It has become undeniably clear that a quantum shift is needed today, from a society based on separation, competition and conflict to one based on interdependence, cooperation and unity. Such a shift needs to come from a deep understanding, and experience, of the essential truths of our existence; it cannot be a superficial change at the outer levels alone, a technological, political or legislative fix. We need to go beyond old authorities and dogmas – beyond divisions of culture, religion, race and gender – and join together to draw upon the deepest truths of our unity – with each other, nature, and the whole field of existence, visible and invisible, manifest and still-unfolding -- to create a new paradigm and to create a new world, beyond our present imagining.

Taking the deep spiritual realization of interconnection and Oneness as the fulcrum for both inner and outer transformation, we seek to realize and put into action its implications not only in the spheres of spirituality and personal inner healing, but in the social, economic and ecological spheres that both shape and reflect our consciousness at the outer collective level. In this way we hope to help bring into being a whole-paradigm shift to a higher, more inter-connective order of consciousness, as well as its expression in our social structures.

This is an exciting vision, one whose time many feel has come. We see ourselves as part of a larger, urgent movement in consciousness today to go beyond religious, cultural and gender divisions, and foster in their place the spirit of interconnection and Wholeness, as both inner experience and in our outer societal forms. Many today are seeking the essence of unity, in the human heart and our global society, so vitally needed to heal ourselves and our fragmented world. They seek a true spiritual centre, both within and without, a means of accessing the Source within, and manifesting its love and harmony in the world. Virtually, these ideas are certainly in the air, but there is also a great need for a place on the ground where people can come together today to help co-create this new paradigm.

Our aim is to create such a place. Joining hands with others moved by this spirit of unity, we wish to offer a generative space for an integral, evolutionary paradigm of spiritual and social transformation highlighting the following aspects:

1. Interspirituality: Distilling the universal essence of the world’s spiritual traditions. Developing a universal language of spirituality, practices and forms that have the depth and power of the highest spiritual traditions but are not religion- or culture-dependent, nor embedded in a patriarchal context.

2. Direct experience: Offering techniques that are directly experiential, leading to the ultimate experience of Oneness with the unified Source of Consciousness that is our true nature. Dogma and division are bypassed with approaches that facilitate the direct experience of unconditional love, interconnection and Oneness, the central principles of spiritual realization and the core of mystical union at the heart of diverse spiritual paths.

3. Integration, inner and outer:  Integrating work at the psychological and energetic levels -- the levels of inner personal healing -- as part of the work of spiritual transformation; and integrating work at the social, political and ecological levels – the level of outer global transformation -- as a natural outflow of our inner work. This includes the visions of integral, engaged and evolutionary spirituality.

4. Bringing in the values of the feminine: Helping to instill the feminine qualities of interconnection, compassion, co-operation and co-creation into spirituality and society; promoting women spiritual teachers and social leaders fostering holistic, integrative and innovative approaches, and working together with men who recognize and support the importance of bringing greater balance into the collective consciousness. These qualities, we strongly believe, though they have been historically relegated largely to women, are in fact the natural birthright of both genders, the gateway to the realization of our wholeness, essential to both our survival on this planet and our highest spiritual evolution. 

Many fertile movements of new thought and consciousness transformation are in the air today -- integrating spiritual traditions, spirituality and psychology, spirituality and science, as well as spirituality and social change. The trend is towards inclusion and integration, breaking down barriers between fields of knowledge as well as between different segments of society. But up until now there has been no physical, on-going base where these various strands of thought have been brought together and furthered into a comprehensive vision of spiritual practice and social transformation.

To this end, we see the Shakti Centre as a chalice for transformation, creating a space for alchemy by drawing together the parts, each with their unique strengths, into a dynamic Whole. The centre will offer a physical base in which different levels of approach to consciousness transformation -- spiritual, scientific and social – can cross-fertilize and flourish into a wholistic, integrated vision and network of action for change. Such an on-going community, offering the opportunity for sustained and engaged exploration and practice, has the potential to gestate the kind of spiritual and social alchemy so critically called for today, and at the same time help to generate a new social model.

Combining the strengths of an ashram, research centre, healing retreat, and sacred activist model, the Shakti Centre seeks to evolve and offer paths to both inner and outer peace, and the realization of our highest potential personally, interpersonally and globally. Going beyond dogma, division, and all authoritarian forms of power or ideology, we would offer tools and support to all who come to find the core of wisdom within, and to discover and express their own unique gifts to the Whole.

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If you are interested in the work of the Centre, please let us know; we’d be grateful for your suggestions and creative input. Ideas for an international venue, funding source, or a hosting organization or community, would be most welcome (venues being considered right now include India, Costa Rica, Brazil, Bali, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, Australia or New Zealand, but other locations may be possible.) If you feel inspired to get involved, in whatever capacity, please contact Kavita Byrd, at: kavitaji25@yahoo.com

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