Sacred Community Podcast

Swapnil Abrol discusses unconditional love, and why we perform the bhakti ritual of aarti. Recorded from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia. Learn more about this year’s retreat this upcoming August 14-17 2025.

Swapnil Abrol (he/him) is an SCP board member and retreat facilitator. He discovered the Bhakti tradition through a formal Amazonian shamanic apprenticeship. Through connecting with Maharajji, he found hi...

Sitaram Dass and Pavan Das tell stories about their time with Ram Dass and answer the question, "What did you have to let go of to be with him?" Recorded from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat.

Sitaram Dass and Pavan Das were both caregivers for Ram Dass, and now they continue their spiritual path through service to others. They are both founding board members of the Sacred Community Project and retreat facilitators for the upcomin...

In this third Q&A from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat, Sitaram Dass leads a discussion on transitioning from a spiritual retreat into our everyday lives and ends by answering an audience question on the nature of grief. He is also joined in the conversation by Pavan Das, Swapnil Abrol, and zander cole. 

Learn more about this year’s Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia.

The Sacred Community Podcast is an inter-spirit...

In this second Q&A from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat, the facilitation team continues in the topic of practice and grace, discussing how to "bring the sacred into everyday," Guru Kripa, the steps of aarti, and the role and pitfalls of psychedelics. Lakshmi and Connor share some Ram Dass stories, and Swapnil tells his story of his training in the jungles of Peru. This episode features Lakshmi Abrol, Swapnil Abrol, Connor Bu...

The Sacred Community Retreat facilitation team discusses the role of practice and grace on the spiritual path. Recorded from the second day of the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat, this episode features Lakshmi Abrol, Swapnil Abrol, Connor Burns, zander cole, Pavan Das, Sitaram Dass, Beverly Hsu, and a special guest appearance by Vasu Jon Seskevich. 

Learn more about this year’s Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia.

The Sacre...

This three part series is taken from a lecture and guided meditation that Sitaram Dass gave at the Sacred Community Retreat at Just Love Forest in Poetry, Georgia. In Part 3, he applies the principles from his lecture on mantra and releasing struggle into a guided Loving-Awareness meditation.

Learn more about this year’s Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia.

The Sacred Community Podcast is an inter-spiritual hub of the u...

This three part series is taken from a lecture and guided meditation that Sitaram Dass gave at the Sacred Community Retreat at Just Love Forest in Poetry, Georgia. In Part 2, he gives a lecture on the Holy Names as a doorway to relating to life with a loving stance.

Learn more about this year’s Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia.

The Sacred Community Podcast is an inter-spiritual hub of the universal teachings, “Love,...

This three part series is taken from a lecture and guided meditation that Sitaram Dass gave at the Sacred Community Retreat at Just Love Forest in Poetry, Georgia. In Part 1, he opens with a short meditation and lecture on cultivating a mind of ease that can release inner struggle.

Learn more about this year’s Sacred Community Retreat in British Columbia.

The Sacred Community Podcast is an inter-spiritual hub of the universal tea...

This is a recorded lecture from the 2024 Loving Rock Karma Yoga Training Program. In this lecture, Anna Le (she/they) shares the "microskills" needed to love and tend to suffering. She discusses how to be a steady and loving companion for others on their spiritual and life journeys, and she teaches practical skills such as attending, attunement, and reflective listening. You can learn more about SCP's Loving Rock training program h...

In this audio recording of an event held shortly after the recent election, Sitaram Dass invokes the central scene of the Bhagavad Gita as a meditation on collective grief to inspire deep feeling, compassion, and right action for this time. 

He breaks up the discourse with 6-minutes of original music and chanting that features: Jeanette Kangas (tabla) Clark Stacer (bass) and Hiromi Sieradski (vocals). Relevant links below. 

Sitaram...

Sarah Anderson, LCSW, interviews her previous therapist, Kenneth Robinson, MS, MTS, for a conversation about psychological healing. This is a follow up conversation from their previous conversation: A Healing Relationship, and in this conversation they convey a synthesis between the psychological and the spiritual through topics such as ego loss, the constructed self, the inner child, vulnerability, and interdependence.

Sarah writ...

In this Q&A from the 2024 Sacred Community Retreat at Just Love Forest, retreat facilitators Hari Scott Whitmore, Pavan Das, and Sitaram Dass tell stories about their time caregiving for Ram Dass. Their honest and heartfelt reflections are shared atop of the sound of the Georgia cicadas and peppered bird song.

For more retreat content or to learn about upcoming retreats, sign up for the email list, follow the podcast and YouTu...

This interview with Ondrea Levine was recorded on October 30th, 2023. Vasu Jon Seskevich and Sitaram Dass traveled to her remote off-the-grid home in the high desert of New Mexico for an intimate conversation about living with an open heart in the face of death and grief. 

Stephen and Ondrea Levine were two of the pioneers of the modern conscious death and dying movement and touched the lives of thousands of people worldwide. Steph...

Ramananda John Welshons is interviewed by Free Landauer to discuss the path of meditation, grief, releasing guilt, and grace. Ramananda also shares some sweet stories about his lifelong friendship with Ram Dass, and he even shares one about SCP director Sitaram Dass.

Ramananda John Welshons is a highly respected contemporary spiritual teacher who lectures and leads meditation courses throughout North America. He has been a practiti...

David Nichtern from Dharma Moon sits down with Greg "Aditya Das" Barbush to discuss mindfulness, the path of meditation, the concept of "suddenly free from fixed mind," the guru from the Tibetan Buddhist perspective, and the relationship between Bhakti Yoga and Buddhism. 

David Nichtern is a senior Buddhist teacher who has been practicing and teaching meditation for over 40 years. He is the founder of Dharma Moon, a mindfulness-bas...

Connor Burns leads a short mindfulness meditation at the 2023 Sacred Community Retreat that was held on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia.

SCP is hosting two retreats this year- outside of Atlanta from May 24-27 and again on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia from August 22-25th. Registration is now live for both of them. Learn more and register for the retreat here: https://sacredcommunityproject.org/sacred-community-ret...

In this second part of Sitaram Dass's Loving-Awareness Meditation, he leads a partner exercise to carry Loving-Awareness into interpersonal relationship and the verbal mind. This was recorded during SCP's first Sacred Community Retreat in the summer of 2023 on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia.

SCP is hosting two retreats this year, and registration is live. Learn more about both the British Columbia and Atlanta, Georgia retr...

Sitaram Dass gives a lecture and leads a mantra meditation on the essence of Loving-Awareness. This was recorded during SCP's first Sacred Community Retreat in the summer of 2023 on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. SCP is hosting two retreats this year, and registration is live. Learn more about both the British Columbia and Atlanta, Georgia retreats at: https://sacredcommunityproject.org/sacred-community-retreats

Sitaram D...

This audio from Swapnil Abrol was recorded during SCP's first Sacred Community Retreat in the summer of 2023. Swapnil gives a talk on Bhakti Yoga and the the nature of unconditional love, and he follows this with traditional bhajans and English storytelling.

SCP is hosting two retreats this year- outside of Atlanta from May 24-27 and again on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia from August 22-25th. Registration is now live for b...