LA 🧡

Altadena, Los Angeles. Malibu, Pacific Palisades, First Responders, and Everyone affected by the recent fires, we are thinking of you. People will continue to need our support. Please donate to or volunteer with any organization you trust and would like to support. One we turn to now, and for other responses around the world, is World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/

Follow your heart this Valentine's Day and give freely. Om Shanti
 

In Memoriam

Supa Rupa
Rupa McLaughlin

If sparkling hazel eyes and a laugh that resonated like the crystal tones of a singing bowl could describe a person, then a boy of Irish ancestry from Philly, turned Bhakti, mala-meditating Krishna devotee, would give you a good description of our dear, departed friend, Rupa McLaughlin. A spiritual life was his perfect feast, and through that, he fed others, literally and figuratively.

Rupa could drive you crazy with his endless repetitions of mantras, or his often unsolicited enthusiastic recitations of the Bhagavad Gita. Still, it was his thing, and it served him well, and he really never pushed it on anyone. He was just a good loving man, husband, father, friend, and joyful warrior in the world. A man of great wit...

Keep Your Thoughts To Yourself

A Meditation on Sitting

with Tracey

When you sit, whether the intention is simply to sit, or to engage with what you might label, meditation, thoughts are the first thing on your mind. Or perhaps getting comfortable in your body is the first tug on your consciousness, so getting comfortable in your body in order to sit is a good thing. Then, you notice the thoughts on your mind. How absolutely normal!

Sitting can be a practice with its own energetic rewards. It's a beautiful, intentional way to collect yourself. It is a way to perceive...

On Meditation

by J. Krishnamurti

Meditation is one of the most extraordinary things, and if you do not know what it is you are like a blind person in a world of bright color, shadows, and moving light. It is not an intellectual affair, when the heart enters into the mind, the mind has quite a different quality: it is really, then, limitless, not only in its capacity to think, to act efficiently, but also in its sense of living in a vast space where you are part of everything.

Meditation is the movement of love. It...

-Krishnamurti
Meditations, 1969

from the White Lotus Kitchen

Honey I'm Home

Valentine's Hot Chocolate Chip Cookies

Life may be like a box of chocolates, but better still, and with way more certainty to please, is our Valentine's chocolate chip cookies. Our cookies are built on the classic recipe using the best ingredients we can find, and taking it up a notch with three kinds of chocolate for the chips, and toasting the nuts before baking. We use two kinds of brown sugar, each containing lots of molasses flavor, and it just gets better the more creative you become. You can choose to brown your choice of butter, if you plan ahead, bringing even more nutty flavor to the mix. Or, you could go full cowboy and start throwing in all sorts of stuff. What ever you fancy. Oh, and don't forget, some like it hot! Happy Valentine's Day.

Sanctuary-Personal Meditation Retreat

We invite you to join us for Sanctuary — Personal Meditation Retreat. Immerse yourself in nature for a time of spiritual sanctuary and take a few well-deserved days to rebalance your body, mind, and spirit. Whether you crave silent contemplation or desire focused time to refine your yoga practice, or whether you're finally going to take time to finish reading or writing that book that's been waiting, there is Sanctuary waiting for you. Come alone or come with a friend or family to celebrate a space out of time. We invite you to the Center, to welcome yourself home. Personal retreat is offered...