• ABOUT MUKTI
    ABOUT MUKTI

    ABOUT MUKTI

    Mukti’s name originates in Sanskrit and is most often translated as “liberation,” a term used in Vedanta and Buddhism much the way the term “salvation” is used in Christianity. Mukti has been the Associate Teacher of Open Gate Sangha since 2004 and has been a student of her husband, Adyashanti, since he began teaching in 1996, when they founded Open Gate Sangha together.

    Previously, Mukti was raised and schooled in the Catholic tradition and also studied the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda for over 20 years—two paths that have greatly informed her journeys into meditation, introspection, and prayer. She holds a master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine, a license in acupuncture, and a Hatha Yoga teaching certification. These backgrounds in body awareness and the healing arts, as well as her years of study with Adyashanti, largely inform her presentation style, her recommended inquiry methods, and her interest in the energetic unfolding of realization and embodiment.

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  • EXPLORE TEACHINGS
    EXPLORE TEACHINGS

    THE JOURNEY OF SPIRIT IN HUMANITY

    Our human journey of coming to know Spirit is made complete in the journey of Spirit coming to know and express itself in our human life and in our shared world. I welcome you to the teachings here, which are meant to facilitate these journeys and to further the union of human and Spirit natures, through processes of conscious realization and harmonization. . . .

    ~ Mukti

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  • QI GONG WITH MUKTI
    QI GONG WITH MUKTI

    Qi Gong with Mukti

    Qi gong is a Chinese term often translated as “cultivating energy” or “cultivating skill with energy.” This routine is based on the Five Treasures qi gong series; it has been modified greatly, giving it more of a yoga feel with some lengthening, stretching, and “noodling” around to release tensions. Mukti teaches qi gong at her meditation retreats to offer balance and energy harmonization, amidst sitting several periods of silent meditation and quiet contemplation each day.

    There are two versions of this routine available. The first one has lengthy instruction and brief standing guided meditations. It runs about half an hour and is recommended for new viewers. See the READ MORE link to access. The other one is about 15 minutes and is given in silence, offered for those who know the background instruction. You can find that video HERE. Please enjoy these videos for health of body, mind, and spirit, and to compliment spiritual practices oriented toward self realization and embodying conscious expression.

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FEATURED WRITING

The Koans of Your Life

One of the great koans of a spiritual life is “What is a spiritual life?” Such a question can take form in one’s being before such words even register, often on the heels of a series of other questions. As I mentioned in last month’s newsletter (May 2021), Adya has often spoken of putting first things first in our questioning, one example being, “Instead of always asking what to do and how to live your life, might you ask, ‘Who is it that is living this life?’”

Some of the earliest questions about life and living that I began asking as a child in Catholic school revolved around the notion of God. I had been told that God is within, and I also had been told that God is everywhere. I was even told that God walks by our side, as the great Comforter. The very notion that there was not one orientation toward God left me disoriented, and thus I fell upon my first koan in life, the “God koan,” if you will. At the time, I had no idea that koan practice had existed for centuries in the East, to purposefully disorient and push one beyond concepts and orienting references.

That was my first blessed push deeper into being, although I didn’t much care for my confusion at the time. It was likely the beginning of my spiritual life, a life in which conceptual discomfort yields to a comfortability with not knowing and then to even greater comfort in the great unknown, the great mystery of being. What kept me going may have been the confusion itself, but also some overriding sense that God was of paramount importance and that I must therefore orient toward God, even as I had little satisfactory understanding of what God is. How does one proceed when they don’t understand? With our confusion, yes, but also with our eyes, ears, minds and hearts open, to the best of our ability. Which is exactly what I did.

Looking back, I believe that my disorientation in the God koan paradoxically gave me a tremendous orientation, an orientation toward God. The notions I was given of the great significance of God, something greater than any one individual, instilled a desire to know God and to serve God, to serve something greater than myself. From there, over years, I began to see what in that desire was born of egoic coping, and what was a call beyond myself altogether.

The story of the unfolding of any spiritual life has layers that give way to other layers, above and below, inside and out. My story is too long to go into further here. But in its moments of disorientation fraught with insistence upon orienting, there has always been comfort to be found in stopping, a comfort born of encountering the living moment with an open heart.

© Mukti Gray 2021

FEATURED PROGRAM
Free Live BroadcastTalk and Emailed Q&A with Mukti
Video Stream

Wednesday, June 7, 2023

6:00-7:30 pm PT

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FEATURED PROGRAM

Mukti offers regular, complimentary, live web broadcasts of her teachings as a service to our community and the world at large. It is a wonderful opportunity to be introduced to her current teachings from anywhere in the world. Each live broadcast contains a talk which may be followed by responses to emailed questions that are submitted by noon (Pacific Time) on the day of the broadcast ([email protected]). We hope you will join us!