Lido Beach Nonduality Night: Celebrating Awakening, Healing, One Love and You

What are Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, Thich Nhat Hanh and your other nondual poets, writers and inspirations all pointing to?

At this co-created community gathering, accompanied by live guitar music, we will explore this question together by sharing our lived insights, personal experiences, and life journeys, woven with music, quotes, and poetry. Ram Dass spoke of Being Here Now. Eckhart Tolle points to the fulfillment and peace intrinsic to our nature. Byron Katie describes what remains as love itself when the question “Is it true?” is sincerely met. Rupert Spira speaks of our inherent love, beauty, and happiness. Thích Nhất Hạnh invites us to be called by our true names. What is this for you? How do you describe what is being pointed to?

Join us for dialogue, celebration, and simple enjoyment of one another. These Meetup gatherings are an opportunity to form local friendships with others who feel drawn to this inquiry, while honoring the many ways it is understood and lived. Our time together is especially supportive for those who have had glimpses of unity, love, or all pervasive beauty through any tradition or life experience, and who wish to celebrate, integrate, or gently explore what may still obscure this knowing in daily life.

This gathering is simply a celebration. There is no cost, no promotion, and no ulterior motive.

Please feel free to bring a favorite quote, poem, or song that speaks to you. For clarity, this Meetup is not a religious gathering, nor is it focused on psychic phenomena, the law of attraction, or energy healing.

The evening will likely begin with a short guided meditation exploring the movement from a sense of separateness into shared presence. From there, each of us will have the opportunity to share from our own journey, including moments of insight, questions that remain alive, and the very human challenges of living from peace, love, and fulfillment.

Please check back on the day of the gathering to confirm that weather has not required us to move indoors. If we are outside, Sid will be sitting on a large blue and white beach sheet toward the back of the beach, approximately fifty yards north of the pavilion. He will likely be wearing a beige hat and accompanied by Shane, who is usually wearing black, who may be playing his guitar.

If you would like a preview of Sid, one of the group’s facilitators, you can search “Sid IFS” for 2-minute shorts and 100’s of YouTube videos or visit EffortlessIFS.com.

Please reach out with any questions or concerns. We look forward to being together.

With warmth and care,
Sid

Below are two poems that beautifully express this shared pointing.

Excerpt from I Am
by Rupert Spira

I know no others and I am thus love itself
I know no objects and am thus beauty itself
I am all that is known and am thus truth itself
I am bound by nothing and am thus freedom itself
I cannot be disturbed and am thus peace itself
I know no lack and am thus happiness itself

Please Call Me By My True Names
by Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow—
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am also the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.