This is an in-person program and we will be following all California safety protocols with regards to Covid-19.
Richard Waxberg will contact you to answer any questions you may have, as soon as we receive your application. Or you can contact Richard anytime at: 805.640.0532 / richard@kfa.org
Once you have been accepted into the program, you will receive an email with instructions to pay your deposit securely.
Tuition & Room Fees Cover all meals
Registration: $40
Regular Tuition: $800 (includes lunch and dinner)
Pepper Tree Retreat room fee: $630 (includes breakfast)
The room price is subsidized. The price listed is for shared rooms, and room allocation will be determined by the Pepper Tree Retreat staff.
College Student Scholarship Tuition: $400
Tuition Scholarships are approved by Richard (805-640-0532) and limited to full-time college and graduate program students. All participants pay the same Pepper Tree Retreat room fee.
A limited number of partial tuition scholarships are awarded with the criteria of a serious financial need and according to the amount of scholarship funds available for each Intensive.
Local commuter participants pay the Tuition of $800, which includes lunch and dinner.
PROGRAM POLICIES
Registration and Payments: Participants are required to pay a non-refundable $40 Registration Fee, along with the 50% Deposit of the Tuition Fee to hold their place in the program. The balance of the Tuition fee is due one month before the program begins.
Cancellation: If a participant cancels participation in the program 30 days or less before the program begins, they get half of their Deposit back, excluding the Registration Fee.
If the program is cancelled for any reason by the KFA, all program payments will be returned.
Transportation: The Ventura County Airporter shuttle from LAX to Ventura (Four Points by Sheraton hotel) charges $45 each way and can be purchased ahead of time (www.venturashuttle.com). Uber service is also availble from LAX directly to the Pepper Tree Retreat for about $100-120 one way. As a complimentary service with no charge to participants, the retreat will pick up participants at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Ventura at 3:30 PM on the first day the program begins, and will drop off participants at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel at 12:15 PM on the day the program ends. For all other times, participants must make their own travel arrangements.
Flight & other Public Transportation Arrangements: We strongly recommend that every participant independently purchase trip-insurance (for example: www.insuremytrip.com), just in case the unlikely possibility arises that the Programs do not run, or if a participant must cancel for personal reasons.
For further information on the Intensive Retreat: please contact Richard Waxberg: 805.640.0532
For further information regarding Pepper Tree Retreat room arrangements: please contact the Pepper Tree front office: 805.646.4773
A Glimpse into Total Freedom
Explorations into Freedom Intensive Retreat
June 19 – 26, 2022, Sunday to Sunday
One of the supreme gifts Krishnamurti gave us was his insistence that we can gather together to inquire and probe into the operation of our current human consciousness in order to see for ourselves how the content of our consciousness, the beliefs, concepts and ideas we carry from one day to the next, shapes our perception of ourselves and the world around us. Krishnamurti pointed out that once our minds have been conditioned to live in fear and conflict, we will ultimately and subconsciously accept a sense of perceptual limitation.
Richard Waxberg and Deborah Kerner have been facilitating dialogues for 17 years for the Krishnamurti Foundation of America, based on Krishnamurti’s profound insights that a spiritual life can effectively begin by exposing the entire operation of our human consciousness, including the perception-shaping mechanisms of the subconscious. And that if a group of serious-minded people are willing to explore together in an atmosphere of mutual trust, affection and sensitivity, there exists the potential to discover for ourselves that the mind can free itself of its psychological burdens, so that a new mind free of the past, a mind that is fresh, fully alive and clear, can begin to flower.
During the 8-day Explorations into Freedom Retreat, Richard and Deborah enter into deep explorations with participants 3 times each day to discover what is preventing a rebirth of the mind. Their work helps make clear that any spiritual journey into understanding the nature of the self, can first begin with examining beliefs and distortions in our thinking, laying the ground for new life-changing insights.
Krishnamurti felt that shared inquiry is a true form of meditation. Richard and Deborah emphasize that at the heart of this form of meditation is an exchange of energy, a gathering of energy created by sharing our insights together, and at the same time releasing psychic energy trapped in fear and resistance. Our shared inquiries give us the freedom to discover that when trapped energy is released, there is the potential for energy to flow unimpeded by ‘time-bound’ limitations, potentially freeing us of the need to hold onto the past or project arrivals into the future, free to be ‘present’ without resistance or conflict.
Krishnamurti made clear that his life was dedicated to freeing humanity of psychological suffering, to help all of us step out of the old, dead patterns of thinking that have led us to this impasse, a crisis of fear that has undermined our capacity to love, and to act from love. But first, in order to begin a new spiritual life with a renewed sensitivity to the perception of the incandescent energy of love that permeates all of life, we must be willing to look at the operation of our current ‘me-centered’ consciousness; to see how it dampens, distorts and limits our capacity to perceive love as the very essence of our being. Once that ‘seeing’ takes place, a new freedom can flower, freeing us from the authority of the known.
During the Retreat, Richard and Deborah encourage participants to discover the penetrating awareness of ‘listening and seeing’ as an open door to a new timeless and boundless perceptual dimension.
Anyone interested in exploring for themselves the possibility of freedom beyond psychological suffering, who has a longing to live in freedom, or who is curious to probe into the potential of freeing the mind in order to discover what awaits us on the other side of fear and conflict, should consider joining Richard and Deborah for their June Explorations into Freedom Intensive Retreat, A Glimpse into Total Freedom. The Retreat takes place at the beautiful, mountain-ringed Krishnamurti Center campus, nestled in the spiritually alive Ojai Valley in California.
Richard and Deborah limit their Intensive Retreats to 12 participants to help create an atmosphere of mutual support, affection, respect and sensitivity, as we journey together toward the birth of a new mind.
Richard Waxberg and Deborah Kerner live in Ojai, California. They moved here 17 years ago by invitation to create and begin facilitating the Explorations into Freedom Intensive Retreats for the Krishnamurti Foundation of America. They offer two 8-day retreats each year at the Krishnamurti Center in Ojai, in June and October. They have also facilitated retreats in British Columbia, Canada and in Denmark.
They are both practicing artists. Richard studies and plays the Japanese Shakuhachi flute. Deborah is also a published poet. Both Richard and Deborah had successful careers in New York City as graphic designers. Richard taught art and design, aesthetics and art history at the prestigious Parsons School of Design.
They left their lives in New York City to begin a new spiritual life, taking up the challenge Krishnamurti proposed of stepping ‘out of time’, stepping out of the ‘me-centered’ paradigm of consciousness. Their journey took them to Ojai, California to study Krishnamurti’s teachings, and to India to teach for a full school year several art and design courses at the Rishi Valley School in rural Andra Pradesh, a school based on Krishnamurti’s teachings located near his birthplace.
During their year of teaching at the Rishi Valley School, Richard and Deborah traveled to 4 Krishnamurti schools throughout India, to participate in dialogues with teachers and staff on what it means for students to experience an education based on Krishnamurti’s teachings.
As part of their earlier spiritual work, they studied Native American shamanic practices for 12 years with 3 traditional Native American elders before discovering the profound life-changing teachings of J.Krishnamurti. It was during these studies that they learned the importance of gathering, storing and releasing energy as an essential part of spiritually transformational work.
They continue studying and exploring current scientific studies and observations on human consciousness that reflect Krishnamurti’s profound message of transformation, freedom, and love.
The Tuition fee and the Pepper Tree Retreat room fee cover the entire program including all meals, materials and round-trip transportation from Ventura to Ojai. We pick-up and drop-off all participants flying into LAX, who take the Ventura Airporter Shuttle from LAX to Ventura, once on the first and last day of the program.
In order to hold your place in the program, we ask all participants to please pay the $40 Registration fee plus a 50% Tuition Deposit. The balance of the Tuition payment is due one month before the program begins. The Pepper Tree Retreat fee is paid upon arrival the first day of the program. The program fills on a First-to-Sign-Up basis.
Once you have been accepted into the program, you can pay your Registration Fee and Tuition Deposit by credit card via our Secure Payment Form that will be sent to your email.
Food: Delicious vegetarian food is served during the program. We will make reasonable efforts to meet your dietary and other special needs. Please let us know in your application.
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