Register for the Online Live Meditation Seminar and the Live Meditation Practice
as well as the
Live Qi Gong Practice and the Beginners Meditation Course

Register for the
Psychotherapy Seminars

Welcome to the Washington Center for Consciousness Studies. The purpose of the Center is to enhance the study and practice of the art of becoming aware of the nature of our own awareness...of becoming conscious of consciousness itself. Utilizing both the methods of meditation and experiential phenomenology. the object of our personal awareness becomes awareness itself. In our various programs the goals are to learn to hold the awareness state, to enter into this innate immediate field of awareness, to rest deeply in the field and at moments becoming the field of consciousness itself. Through meditative practice one can begin to experience the field of awareness itself as the base, and as the medium through which one experiences one's life. The field of awareness and its primordial qualities slowly, but surely becomes the organizer of our personality. The qualities of the field are spaciousness, energy, light and compassion. We begin to feel, think, see and sense through the field...in an word we integrate both our cognitive functions and life experience within the field of awareness. The field itself is completely relational, multidimensional and infinite in its horizon.

Once established in the field of awareness we can easily practice the method of extension in order to expand this field of ongoing continuity of Being; this field which is so infinite in its horizon, and so multidimensional. The field itself is the source of connectedness, oneness and healing. Through science and physics, the empirical knowledge of the nature of subtle fields has been opened for us, confirming the understanding of contemporary phenomenological philosophy and psychology that consciousness is a field. Even more remarkably, recent science is confirming the mystic view of the ancient spiritual and healing traditions both eastern and western which describe a self-generating ground state of the universe. This ground field connects self to self, tradition to tradition, culture to culture and universe to universe.

Because of the convergence of understanding, we are able to be artfully eclectic and are able to utilize the practices of many traditions that emphasize the embodiment of consciousness. We utilize many languages...including Dzogchen Tibetan Buddhism, Hindu Kashmir Shavism, Christian Mystic traditions as well as Sufism and Taoistic Qi Gong practices. Our basic orientation is western phenomenology which is so inclusive in spirit and method. The seminars are intensely experiential and everyone enters and holds the primordial field of awareness together, thus learning to generate and sustain this view both for oneself and others.

Most of our meditation seminars are designed to invoke the practice of meditation for the general public and are free of cost via the internet. Some seminars are more specifically designed for the psychotherapist and people dedicated to the healing arts who wish to amplify their developed skills in working within the field of awareness. In time, a PhD in Consciousness Studies will be offered for the professionally oriented practitioner.
 

Who is the Teacher?

The teacher is the field of awareness itself; infinite in its horizon and so multidimensional. Or as Swami Muktananda was fond of saying, "meditation teaches meditation." It is of the very nature of the innate immediate field of awareness to illuminate itself in the most direct and experiential manner. In a way every experience can be method. It is really great to meet great teachers and yogis who embody the field completely and personally. Their articulations of their experience is both uplifting and compelling, and will give us orientation and even the direct experience of the field within our own self. We also consider that all of the various traditions are in themselves, fields of knowledge and information reflecting the very nature of the field of our own awareness.

To enter the various traditions is still yet another method of experiencing the nature of our own awareness state. Through the traditions, one can enter the archetypal dimension of one's awareness state through devotion to the various deities. Here we understand that the various deities and archetypes are personifications and symbolizations of the primordial qualities of the nature of consciousness itself. Here our orientation is that every teacher is method, every tradition is method, every deity is method, and every mantra is method; just as equally is every life experience method for entering into the experience of the primordial consciousness in and of itself. Ultimately it is our own field of awareness itself, that teaches and leads us into our own nature. Awareness itself teaches awareness.