Date & Time06/09/20189:30 am - 5:30 pm

This new and unique training explores a variety of contemplative practices and forms of meditation from seven major religious and spiritual traditions, guided by highly regarded and authentic teachers from each tradition. Participants will gain direct, firsthand experience of many meditative disciplines providing a deep grounding within the framework of a cross cultural interreligious approach to meditative practice.

The essential wisdom teachings of these major traditions will be explored, while highlighting and honoring the sacredness and uniqueness of each tradition and its approach. The programs masterful teachers will guide participants through a deep exploration of each tradition and its main meditative practices.

Participants will explore five major components of meditative practice:

Workshops Include:

In addition to the weekend modules students will have access to our mentorship program and ongoing Pod Casts:

E. Supervision meetings with a Mentor 1 hour, 3 times per training. (See description below)

One on one mentoring session are designed to give critical support and guidance on personal challenges and obstacles that may arise in the course of the study.

Mentoring sessions are provided to establish a personal supportive relationship which encourages and helps sustain a ripening and deepening of ones self inquiry and self-reflection.

Pod Cast call:

To ensure students have an opportunity to connect and bond with fellow cohort members, develop supportive relationships and discuss theoretical and practical ideas with fellow participants.

Program FacilitatorAndrew Vidich Ph.D.

Role of Facilitator:

Who Should Enroll?This certificate program for anyone seeking to deepen and strengthen their personal meditation practice, as well as those seeking to integrate meditation or contemplative practice in a variety of professional settings, such as healthcare professionals, psychologists, clinicians, educators, clergy, yoga instructors, and bodyworkers.Click for Details to the: Certification Documentation Contemplative Studies Program Certificate

Click here for a list of reading materials

Registration and FeesAn 8-Month Certification ProgramJanuary 19 August 4, 2018 7 weekends, Saturdays & Sundays, 9:30 am 5:30 pm6 Friday evenings, 6:30 9:30 pmPlus monthly meetings and mentoring sessions.January 1921, February 1618, March 1618, April 2022, April 2729, May 1819, June 810, August 4

$2,995 (No Member Discount)$2,595 Early bird rate by December 11, 201717FSM22A$3495 Payment Plan17FSM22BTo register for payment plan, call 212-219-2527, Ext. 2.

LocationNew York Open Center

Thomas Amelio intensely studied yogic disciplines and philosophy in India, where he edited Rajarshi Munis classic, YogaThe Ultimate Spiritual Path. He is a founding member of, and has been a senior teacher at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health for over 35 years, and is President Emeritus of the NY Open Center in New York City. His latest CD is Mantra DarshanVedic and Tantric invocations for meditative absorption.

Reverend JoAnn Barrett is the founder of Gathering of Light Interspiritual Fellowship. She is the current co-chair of Interfaith Anti Bias Task Force of Suffolk County, a member of the Huntington Clergy Association, a past Member of Peace Island Institutes Center of Interfaith Studies advisory board, collaborator for Religions For Peace Long Island (a local branch of a world-wide NGO at the United Nations) and a prior Member of the Dignity for All Students Act Committee which helped this bill pass in New York. Rev JoAnn is also a published author and poet. Recently she is one of the collaborating authors of the book Mature Interspirituality.

Tim Boyd has served as international President of the Theosophical Society since April of 2014. He currently shares his time between Adyar, the headquarters of the Society in Chennai, India, his home in Chicago, Illinois, and travel to sections of the TS worldwide.

Lama Surya Das is an authorized lama and lineage holder in the Nyingmapa School of Tibetan Buddhism, and a close personal disciple of the leading grand lamas of that tradition. He is the founder of the Dzogchen Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and its branch centers around the country, including the retreat center Dzogchen Osel Ling outside Austin, Texas, where he conducts long training retreats and Advanced Dzogchen retreats. Over the years, Surya has brought many Tibetan lamas to this country to teach and start centers and retreats. As founder of the Western Buddhist Teachers Network with the Dalai Lama, he regularly helps organize its international Buddhist Teachers Conferences. He is also active in interfaith dialogue and charitable projects in the third world.

Shaykha Fariha is the spiritual guide of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order, a lineage that guides the seeker of knowledge and of God in the teachings of Islam. The sacred practices of zikr, prayer, charitable living, fasting, and retreat are all embraced.

Yogiraj Alan Finger is the founder of ISHTA Yoga. Previous he co-founded Yoga Zone, Be Yoga, and Yoga Works. He has co-authored books including Introduction to Yoga and Chakra Yoga and is working on Tantric View of the Sutras.

Sarah Finger is co-founder of ISHTA Yoga. She teaches trainings, workshops, and retreats internationally and serves on the Board of Exhale to Inhale, a non-profit organization that teaches yoga to survivors of domestic violence.

Kabir Helminski is a Shaikh in the lineage of Rumi, and co-director of the Threshold Society (Sufism.org). In 2009 and subsequent years, Kabir was named as one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World by the Royal Strategic Studies Center (Jordan). He has toured North America as Shaikh with the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey, bringing Sufi culture to more than 100,000 people. His seven volumes of Rumi translations and books on spirituality, Living Presence and The Knowing Heart, have been published in at least eight languages. In 2017, Living Presence is being published in a commemorative 25th anniversary edition in the Spiritual Cornerstones series by Penguin Books.

Kurt Johnson, PhD, a scientist, comparative religionist, social activist, and former monastic in three spiritual traditions, is widely regarded as the closest associate of Brother Wayne Teasdale, founder of the modern interspiritual movement, and works with the Contemplative Alliance and Father Thomas Keating, founder of the Centering Prayer Movement. Kurt is the author of the influential book The Coming Interspiritual Age (Namaste 2013) and two award-winning books in science, Nabokovs Blues (McGraw-Hill 2000) and Fine Lines (Yale, 2015). He is a member or founder of The Evolutionary Leaders, the international Contemplative Alliance, the Gaiafield and Subtle Activism Networks, the Self Care to Earth Care network, the UN NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns, the NGO Forum 21 Institute, and the UN Committee for International Yoga Day, and is President of the Friends of the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

Loch Kelly, M.Div., LCSW is the author of the award-winning bookShift into Freedom: The Science and Practice of Open-Hearted Awareness.He is anondualpsychotherapist and Buddhist teacher of awakening affiliated with Adyashanti. Loch has worked in community mental health, addiction recovery and counseled family members of 9/11. Loch collaborates with neuroscientists at Yale, UPenn and NYU to study how awareness training enhances compassion and wellbeing.

Carl McColman is a Christian contemplative writer, speaker, retreat leader and spiritual director. He is a life-professed Lay Cistercian, a layperson under formal spiritual guidance of Trappist monks. His books include Befriending Silence, Answering the Contemplative Call, and The Big Book of Christian Mysticism.

Nitin Ron is a neonatologist (baby doctor!) and loves high altitude trekking and mountaineering. He is an associate professor of pediatrics at New York Methodist Hospital, and loves to use innovative methods to teach medical students. He is often humbled and amazed by what love and compassion can do to heal little premature and sick babies! He has been leading a research project in the Himalayas, including the Mt. Everest region, involving ultrasound of the eye (optic nerve) and the body, to predict mountain sickness, and have also looked at the effect of meditation in acclimatizing the body to high altitude. he also volunteers as an art guide at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in New York City, and this is a reminder to him that medicine is so much of an art as well as a science!

Thomas Ryan is a Catholic priest, author, and member of the Paulist Fathers, the founder and director of the Paulist North American Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, and co-founder of Unitas, an ecumenical center for spirituality and Christian meditation in Montreal.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro, PhD, an awardwinning author of over 30 books on religion and spirituality, directs the One River Foundation (oneriverfoundation.org), writes a column for Spirituality and Health magazine, and hosts the podcast Essential Conversations with Rabbi Rami.

Swami Shraddhananda heads Slate Branch Ashram in Kentucky, home of Sacred Feet Yoga. A professor of literature, classics, and comparative world religions for 35 years, she holds a doctorate from Emory University. The Mature Interspirituality retreat was held at her ashram, and she spearheaded as well as edited a collection of essays based on the retreat entitled, Mature Interspirituality: Wayne Teasdales Nine Elementsand Beyond. Her most recent book is a collection of poems entitled Are You Dancing with Me, Shiva? (Sacred Feet, 2018).

Andrew Vidich, PhD, is an award-winning author, educator, and international speaker. His books include Love Is a Secret, Light Upon Light: 5 Master Paths to Awakening the Mindful Self and Let There Be Light: Experiencing Light Across the Worlds Sacred Traditions. Andrew has been an adjunct assistant professor of religion at Manhattan College and Iona College in New Rochelle, New York. He is a founding member of The Interfaith Council of New York and a member of the council of trustees of The Temple of Understanding. He is the public relations director and board member for the Science of Spirituality Meditation Center in Amityville New York.

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Meditation and Contemplative Studies Certificate Training ...