Kurt Kailash Bruder Ph.D., M.Ed.

Special Event Topics with Kailash

 

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Seminars & Workshops

Workshops may be modified for content and length in accordance with the needs of the host and participants. Kailash would be pleased to collaborate with you in creating the very educational and inspirational experience that will support your community in your specific goals for transcendence.

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Following Sound into Silence: An Intensive Devotional Chanting Experience
Our greatest good and highest happiness is to be cultivated by passionately reminding ourselves of the Supreme--by whatever Name this Ultimate One may be known. In devotional chanting we arrange to have our minds and hearts preoccupied by Perfection. By the alchemy of association, we become more and more like the One to Whom we devote our thoughts and feelings.
In a unique two-day seminar, Kailash makes this method for freedom and joy both easy to understand and use throughout a lifetime of personal growth.
We will delve deeply into the practice of chanting mantras ("mind-protectors") from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, learning how to support ourselves in a proven method for dissolving our cares, limitations, and fears by remembering the Divine in concentrated devotional activity. We will also learn how to apply particular mantras in the pursuit of specific goals and benefits.
Presented in several sessions over two to five days.

Vocal Yoga 
Your voice is the rudder of your mind; thoughts and feelings go where speech sends them. You may have been exposed to chanting and other spiritual practices involving voice, but may feel too self-conscious about your voice to practice them on your own--let alone sing in public. In this workshop you will learn to harness these most important human resources, speech and song, in the service of your health and growth. You will exercise your powers of voice and hearing, dissolve your inhibitions, and prepare yourself for a lifetime of vocal play, unfettered openness, and ever-increasing harmony with your Divine Source.  
Presented in a single 4-hour session.

The Divine Romance: Realizing God/dess with Your Intimate Partner 
Regardless of the name or form of the Divine you honor, saints and sages in all wisdom traditions recognize that God is Love. Your capacity for love—both as lover and beloved—is a function of your transparency to the Radiant Care that you essentially are. In this workshop you will learn how to relate to your intimate partner as the Supreme object of your affection, and how to receive their devotion in turn. Simultaneously you will accelerate your spiritual progress, dissolve your self-centeredness, expand the reach of your compassion, and support you in bliss. This workshop includes candid discussion of intimacy, ritual demonstration, and devotional chanting as features of the learning experience.
Presented in a single 4-hour session.

Deity Yoga: Using the Power of Imagination to Bring About Real Change in Your Life
Drawing upon an ancient spiritual method for personal transformation, this workshop provides training in harnessing your innate capacity for fantasy in service of your spiritual growth. Every time you daydream, you're exercising your ability to imagine a different world--and a different you. This workshop will empower you to put that ability to work, helping you to become who you want to be. The practice of Deity Yoga involves visualizing, relating to, and ultimately identifying with representations of the Divine during formal devotional practice. Through Attention and Affection you move from relating to an inspiring Image of the Divine "out there," to internalizing the qualities of your Ideal as features of yourself. 
Presented in several sessions across three days.

Asana, Nada, & Bhakti Yoga Combined
This special event combines three distinct, yet mutually reinforcing, Yogas ("methods for achieving Union"): Asana (Posture), Nada (Sound), and Bhakti (Devotion). During the first half of our time together, participants are welcome to join [name of asana instructor] in guided Asana practice (or to simply relax) while Kailash chants sacred Sanskrit mantras in the background. In the second half, Kailash will lead us in kirtan--call & response style chanting--as well as offering inspiring instruction and storytelling to enrich the devotional experience.

Presented in a single three-hour session.

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Special Chant-related Events
Each of these programs are designed to be presented in a single, two-hour segment 

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Kids Kirtan with Kailash: A Vocal Yoga for Young People...and other human beings-in-training 

Long ago, in far-away lands, people discovered that their minds and hearts followed where their voices sent them. They learned that by chanting the Names and singing the Praises of the Highest Beings they could imagine, their lives were made happier, and their fears simply dissolved. In this Celebration of Sacred Song, we will chant mantras ("mind-protectors") from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, and give ourselves a chance to forget our cares and our limitations while remembering the Supreme. By telling the ancient stories of Gods and Goddesses, and leading everyone in shared vocal play, Kailash will makes this method for freedom and joy both easy to understand and use on your own.

 

 

Celebrating the Goddess

Get better acquainted with your Divine Mother: the Source of Life, the Substance of Every Object, She Who assumes All Forms. We'll worship the Sacred Feminine in Her many phases and moods. We'll chant Her mantras and making offerings to an array of Mother-forms, from Her nurturing to Her fierce aspects (Bhavani, Green Tara, Durga, Kali, Shree Devi, Vajrayogini). This is a unique opportunity for inspiration, learning, and deep feeling. Focusing our minds and hearts on the Goddess equips us to recognize Her in and through all of Her myriad disguises (even Her horrifying masks), to receive Her selfless Care, and to become a conduit for manifesting Her quality of transcendent, indescriminate Love.

 

Remembering the Divine Father
Identify with that Deepest Part of yourself which is always awake, always aware, and calmly observing everything that is happening. This is the Luminous Awareness and Care that is your Essential Nature. Together we will chant mantras extolling the Names of God from the Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian traditions, and ride the waves of our own united voices to the Inner Shore of Bliss. We'll make offerings to the Sacred Masculine in several of His guises (i.e., Ganesha, Shiva, Rama, Hanuman, Krishna, Vajrasattva, Medicine Buddha, Padmasambhava, Avalokiteshvara, Jesus, and Saturn). Discover your inner identity with the Supreme "I" that is looking out through all eyes everywhere, the All-Father. 


Realizing Oneness: Mantras and Meditations for Uniting with the Supreme
Everywhere in the universe, there's a force operating behind the scenes: the Impulse toward Union. This force drives all sorts of happenings, from the most basic (like eating and reproducing) to the sublime (such as friendship, love, and spiritual growth). Within the tantric traditions of both Hinduism and Buddhism, this Ultimate Oneness is depicted using the imagery of the Divine Couple: e.g., Shiva & Shakti, Rama & Sita, Krishna & Radha, Samantabhadra & Samantabhadri. These divine pairings show the promise of reconciling all opposites and healing every conflict. We'll enchant ourselves with mantras celebrating Divine Union. They help us release our tensions, let go of our bitterness, resolve our disputes, and center our fragmented minds and hearts in the Supreme.


Healing Chants with Kailash: Use Your Voice to Renew Your Body, Mind, and World
Devotional chanting provides us with a proven means to align ourselves with that innate intelligence that maintains the health and wholeness of all living things. Many mantras ("mind-protectors") are conspicuously therapeutic, but all are restorative in their effects upon those who employ them with sincerity. Bringing peace to our over-crowded minds and softening our hardened hearts, devotional chanting fosters our well-being while promoting our evolution. Being the recipient of this therapeutic energy readies us for our role as healers in our own right.


Sustained Devotional Chanting 
Kailash will lead us in extended chanting, holding our minds and hearts to a given mantra beyond the period typically observed in kirtans. Persevering in communal chant beyond the threshold of boredom, irritation, and self-consciousness opens practitioners to a depth of devotion and transformation rarely experienced otherwise. There is special "nectar" to be found in mantra-work that lies at the far side of the usual limits of our endurance. This practice exposes and disrupts ordinary "chatty" mind, affording us an opportunity to immerse our total BodyMind in mantra, while extending the boundaries of our patience and compassion

In his scholarly work, Kailash investigated a variety of topics dealing with the subject of the human sense of self, one's response to the question, "Who am I?" This issue has always been a central concern across the world's Wisdom Traditions, which recognize that the concept of our separation from one another, and all things, fuels our suffering. Finding a practical solution to human egotism is the perennial preoccupation of spiritual communities throughout history.

Throughout his career, Kailash has explored the communication, beliefs, practices, and experiences of people in a wide variety of religious traditions. He integrates these insights into his personal life, spiritual path, musical performance, and ongoing research, in the hope of offering valuable means of moving beyond our obsessive self-concern into a stable, integrated condition of happiness and well being.

This fundamental transformation in our approach to life is best accomplished by cultivating a preoccupation with Perfection. This means habitually arranging to think about, passionately embrace, and ultimately identify with the Highest Ideals we can imagine. To this end, Kailash has become an Invocation Specialist--someone who excells in invoking the Presence of the Supreme, and who regularly and successfully assists others in doing so, too.

 

What is remarkable about any event with Kailash is the unique combination of devotional purity, enchanting music, captivating storytelling, insightful instruction, and inspiring leadership. In a "truth gathering" (satsang) with Kailash, he shares from a rich storehouse of wisdom and beauty that has its source in a diverse spiritual lineage, deep inquiry into the human sciences, a sensitivity to how we learn, and an ability to cultivate growth beyond our ordinary limits.

Kailash is available to lead devotional chanting events, to help start new kirtan (interactive devotional chanting) groups, to perform live concerts, and to teach about devotional chanting--as well as many other spiritual practices and topics.

Kailash is also available to provide invocations (and other meaningful interactive rituals) suitable for any occasion or event. Invocations may be drawn from any established tradition or fashioned to order, and may be of any duration or level of complexity.

Kailash will help you to awaken a profound sense of the Sacred, foster a direct experience of the Divine Presence, and strengthen the bond among the participants in your gathering, meeting, ceremony, or corporate function. As a result, you and your event will be empowered with a superior sense of expectation, purpose, collaboration, and success. Please contact Kailash to discuss how best to achieve your vision.

Please visit Kailash's website, http://OmKailash.com, to get acquainted with his background, mission, activities, products, and services.

Please contact Kailash at: <Mgmt@OmKailash.com>