Come Together

A spiritual community dissolves the sense of separateness that causes so much of our suffering. With a few friends, create one of your own.

By Sally Kempton

Then, find a teaching to study together, something that opens you up and invites truth to be in the room with you. Though chanting and meditation are satsang activities and will enhance the experience, satsang deepens through discussion.

Do-It-Yourself Satsang

Here's how a satsang program might go:

• Light a candle, representing the Witness, or divine awareness.
• Chant mantras or meditate together for a few minutes.
• Read your chosen passage aloud, contemplate it, and then discuss it. (See "Passage to Truth" to learn how to contemplate a passage.)
• In the conversation, aim at allowing wisdom to surface, instead of giving opinions. You might take the attitude that the wisdom inside the text is calling forth inner wisdom from each of you, and that it will reveal itself as you invite and allow it. Understand that each of you has a natural intelligence that can help bring it forth, and that wisdom can arise through any of you.
• Allow each other to speak. Listen carefully to what the other says. If an insight arises in your mind while you're listening, write it down rather than interrupt the speaker to blurt it out.
• As you listen, notice any judgments that may be arising and let them go. One friend of mine says that in listening, he tells himself that God is speaking through the other person. I find that this works well.
• Don't be afraid to challenge each other, but do it from a state of feeling connected to your awareness.
• When something is said that feels powerful and true, pause for a moment to let it sink in.
• Close with a brief meditation—perhaps simply sitting with an awareness of the movement of breath, or meditating with an insight that arose during your discussion.

Through all this, open yourself to the feeling-space of satsang, the openness or tenderness that will arise. Treasure it. When it does arise, say "Thank you." Satsang is a rarity. Some people say that it's the reason we take birth.

Sally Kempton, also known as Durgananda, is an author, a meditation teacher, and the founder of the Dharana Institute. For more information, visit www.sallykempton.com.

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