Comments after the Heart Circle

“A beautiful and freeing moment in time  that I will carry with me always and go back to that experience at times of stress. The circle  with chanting and changing positions when the music stops takes the focus off YOU and just allowed me to have a deep and powerful spiritual interaction.  Thank you for sharing this with me.”

Robyn Halpern  New York 2011

“I used to think that in order to be happy I have to be with somebody. But now I realized that I’m somebody.”

Maria, San Jose, 2010

“It made me feel a happiness that I hadn’t felt since I was a small child”

Clare, high school student, Austin 2010

Universities

Schools

Katherine Anne Porter School

Churches

Dada Nabhaniilananda has worked with the First Unitarian Church of San José (FUCSJ) twice this year, and we hope to welcome him back soon! His offerings have had a profound impact on members, friends, and ministers alike.

Congregants are still talking about the worship service that he co-led with me in March; when asked in a recent survey for worship ideas for the coming church year, many of our members cited the beauty, power, and sheer interest of Dada’s worship service as an example of the kind of experience for which they hunger. Similarly, the roomful of participants at his all-day Meditation Retreat in June came away with a commitment to deepening their spiritual practice and an experience of Love at their core.

As Senior Minister here at FUCSJ, I had the pleasure of partnering with Dada in creating his March worship service, titled “The Legacy of Shiva: The Spirituality of Tantra Yoga,” and then I too became one of his students during the Meditation Retreat. In every meeting with Dada, I have been moved and inspired by his gentle spirit, by his depth of knowledge and of compassion, by his glorious musical gifts, and by his graceful weaving of humor, story, history, and yogic science into experiences that are rich both spiritually and intellectually. Dada’s teachings have illuminated the complex histories of the yoga tradition(s), and have illuminated their relationships to Hinduism and Buddhism. His years of study and practice of Ananda Marga give an ease and sincerity to his teaching—and he manages to offer all this with a light touch that is engaging for everyone, from the most devout theist to the most confirmed atheist in our Unitarian Universalist ranks. What a gift!

I hope that you will treat your spirit and explore this path with Dada. If you have any questions about my experiences in working with Dada, please do give me a call: 408-952-9418.

Rev. Nancy Palmer Jones, Senior Minister, First Unitarian Church of San José 2011

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