Sacred Community Podcast

In this first Q&A from the 2025 Sacred Community Retreat, the facilitation team answers the question, "What does it mean to live spiritually and authentically in everyday life?" This episode features Lakshmi Abrol, Swapnil Abrol, Connor Burns, zander cole, Pavan Das, Sitaram Dass, and Beverly Hsu.  Learn more about this year’s Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia. The Sacred Community...

Noah Hoffeld chats with zander about music as a sacred path of listening and explores the intricacies of what it means to play improvisational cello in kirtan. He also discusses time spent with spiritual teachers such as Ram Dass, Krishna Das, and David Nichtern, and he expounds on the essence of Loving Awareness.   Noah Hoffeld is a musician and meditation teacher known for his soulful cello play...

"The dance of Krishna with the Gopis is a nectar-enriched tale that sparks delight from each turn of phrase. Every page is an Ambrosia-soaked rag, its absorbent capacity so overwhelmed it sweats honey; the slightest touch and Amrit rains down like a monsoon, watering the imagination and fermenting it with Nectar. "It describes God, not as distant, punishing, or evenly placidly loving, but as Intim...

This recorded audio meditation is from the 2024 Loving Rock Training. Sitaram Dass leads a heart-opening visualization of merging with a being of unconditional love. This meditation was from the module on Dream Logic, and it led to a discussion about how intention and imagination can open us to "non-ordinary states of consciousness." Find out more about the upcoming Loving Rock Training program an...

In this talk from the 2024 Loving Rock Training, Swapnil Abrol (he/him) shares his personal reflections from along the spiritual path. Starting from his first psychedelic experience, exploring different modalities of connection to being trained as a shaman, Swap offers insights on how to navigate alternate states of reality and integrate them into our everyday lives. Find out more about the upcomi...

Bala Yancey and Nivay Sahaye sit down with zander to chat about the Just Love Forest Ashram . They discuss the journey of its founding and highlight themes of: Listening to the heart, fostering community, reverence, spiritual practice, death, green burials, stewarding, sovereignty, and communing with nature.  Just Love Forest is a 716- acre conservation ashram in Poetry, GA that offers a unique bl...

Connor Burns leads a short mindfulness meditation at the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. Connor Burns (he/him) is a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) and emotional wellness advocate living in Vancouver, BC Canada. Connor's curiosity of the human condition started from a young age and has led to hundreds of hours of yoga and mindfulness trainings and more...

After giving a talk on Loving Imperfections , Sitaram Dass leads a 40-minute Loving Awareness mantra meditation.  This meditation was recorded on day 3 of the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat on Salt Spring Island.   Sitaram Dass (K. Sandin, LCSW) (he/him) spent several years serving his beloved teacher Ram Dass on Maui, where he was shown the path of Bhakti, the yoga of service and devotion to God....

Sitaram Dass discusses how to love imperfections without having to "jump through cognitive hoops" to do so.  This talk was recorded on day 3 of the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat on Salt Spring Island, and it preceded a 40-minute Loving-Awareness mantra meditation .   Sitaram Dass (K. Sandin, LCSW) (he/him) spent several years serving his beloved teacher Ram Dass on Maui, where he was shown the pat...

In this talk from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat, Sitaram Dass talks about Love, lessons learned from ram Dass, and mantra meditation as a form of "applied Bhav." Sitaram Dass (K. Sandin, LCSW) (he/him) spent several years serving his beloved teacher Ram Dass on Maui, where he was shown the path of Bhakti, the yoga of service and devotion to God. He is a kirtan singer, social worker, author, an...

Swapnil Abrol discusses the nature of bhakti as unconditional love and asks the question, "What would you do if you really knew that you were infinitely loved just as you are?" Recorded from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia. Learn more about the 2025 retreat this upcoming August 14-17 2025. Swapnil Abrol (he/him) is an SCP board member and retreat facilitator. He discovered th...

Swapnil Abrol discusses unconditional love, and why we perform the bhakti ritual of aarti. Recorded from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia. Learn more about this year’s retreat this upcoming August 14-17 2025. Swapnil Abrol (he/him) is an SCP board member and retreat facilitator. He discovered the Bhakti tradition through a formal Amazonian shamanic apprenticeship. Through conn...

Sitaram Dass and Pavan Das tell stories about their time with Ram Dass and answer the question, "What did you have to let go of to be with him?" Recorded from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat. Sitaram Dass and Pavan Das were both caregivers for Ram Dass, and now they continue their spiritual path through service to others. They are both founding board members of the Sacred Community Project and r...

In this third Q&A from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat, Sitaram Dass leads a discussion on transitioning from a spiritual retreat into our everyday lives and ends by answering an audience question on the nature of grief. He is also joined in the conversation by Pavan Das, Swapnil Abrol, and zander cole.  Learn more about this year’s Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia. The Sacred Co...

In this second Q&A from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat, the facilitation team continues in the topic of practice and grace, discussing how to "bring the sacred into everyday," Guru Kripa, the steps of aarti, and the role and pitfalls of psychedelics. Lakshmi and Connor share some Ram Dass stories, and Swapnil tells his story of his training in the jungles of Peru. This episode features Laks...

The Sacred Community Retreat facilitation team discusses the role of practice and grace on the spiritual path. Recorded from the second day of the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat, this episode features Lakshmi Abrol, Swapnil Abrol, Connor Burns, zander cole, Pavan Das, Sitaram Dass, Beverly Hsu, and a special guest appearance by Vasu Jon Seskevich.  Learn more about this year’s Sacred Community Retr...

This three part series is taken from a lecture and guided meditation that Sitaram Dass gave at the Sacred Community Retreat at Just Love Forest in Poetry, Georgia. In Part 3, he applies the principles from his lecture on mantra and releasing struggle into a guided Loving-Awareness meditation. Learn more about this year’s Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia. The Sacred Community Podcast is...

This three part series is taken from a lecture and guided meditation that Sitaram Dass gave at the Sacred Community Retreat at Just Love Forest in Poetry, Georgia. In Part 2, he gives a lecture on the Holy Names as a doorway to relating to life with a loving stance. Learn more about this year’s Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia. The Sacred Community Podcast is an inter-spiritual hub of...

This three part series is taken from a lecture and guided meditation that Sitaram Dass gave at the Sacred Community Retreat at Just Love Forest in Poetry, Georgia. In Part 1, he opens with a short meditation and lecture on cultivating a mind of ease that can release inner struggle. Learn more about this year’s Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia. The Sacred Community Podcast is an inter-s...

This is a recorded lecture from the 2024 Loving Rock Karma Yoga Training Program. In this lecture, Anna Le (she/they) shares the "microskills" needed to love and tend to suffering. She discusses how to be a steady and loving companion for others on their spiritual and life journeys, and she teaches practical skills such as attending, attunement, and reflective listening. You can learn more about S...

In this audio recording of an event held shortly after the recent election, Sitaram Dass invokes the central scene of the Bhagavad Gita as a meditation on collective grief to inspire deep feeling, compassion, and right action for this time.  He breaks up the discourse with 6-minutes of original music and chanting that features: Jeanette Kangas (tabla) Clark Stacer (bass) and Hiromi Sieradski (voca...

Sarah Anderson, LCSW, interviews her previous therapist, Kenneth Robinson, MS, MTS, for a conversation about psychological healing. This is a follow up conversation from their previous conversation: A Healing Relationship , and in this conversation they convey a synthesis between the psychological and the spiritual through topics such as ego loss, the constructed self, the inner child, vulnerabili...

In this Q&A from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat at Just Love Forest , retreat facilitators Hari Scott Whitmore, Pavan Das, and Sitaram Dass tell stories about their time caregiving for Ram Dass. Their honest and heartfelt reflections are shared atop of the sound of the Georgia cicadas and peppered bird song. For more retreat content or to learn about upcoming retreats, sign up for the email...

This interview with Ondrea Levine was recorded on October 30th, 2023. Vasu Jon Seskevich and Sitaram Dass traveled to her remote off-the-grid home in the high desert of New Mexico for an intimate conversation about living with an open heart in the face of death and grief.  Stephen and Ondrea Levine were two of the pioneers of the modern conscious death and dying movement and touched the lives of t...

Ramananda John Welshons is interviewed by Free Landauer to discuss the path of meditation, grief, releasing guilt, and grace. Ramananda also shares some sweet stories about his lifelong friendship with Ram Dass, and he even shares one about SCP director Sitaram Dass. Ramananda John Welshons is a highly respected contemporary spiritual teacher who lectures and leads meditation courses throughout No...