Open Heart UK

23/05/2026

Join us for this guided meditation on Sundays and Wednesdays that helps us awaken to our inner wisdom and great compassion. With practice and guidance, each of us can realise our own internal purity and oneness with all of life. The flowering of this oneness reveals the perfect love, peacefulness, and joy that is our true nature.

Everyone is welcome, no meditation experience necessary.

I hope to see you there. Click the link below to find out more.

The meditations I lead are all about helping people have a direct experience in their mind and body. Through experiencing our own inner goodness, we can start to become cle

19/05/2026

The meditations I lead are all about helping people have a direct experience in their mind and body. Through experiencing our own inner goodness, we can start to become clear about our true identity and purpose, as well as heal the psychological trauma and negative beliefs and attitudes that cause us so many problems in life.

Deep down what all people want is to be happy. But life is full of pain, and we are weighed down by all the emotional and psychological baggage we have picked up over time. This baggage keeps us living life as some distorted version of ourself, making us feel small, stressed, and with a sense of lack that won't go away.

Through guided meditation and mantra practice, in a short amount of time you can experience a glimpse of your own awakened nature, which is naturally radiant, calm, loving, and perfectly at ease.

Beneath the rigid walls of our ego lies our natural capacity to heal our weary hardened heart, see beauty and wonder in the world again, and to live in natural ease beyond our habitual fears.

Gradually, with regular practice, we begin to taste life without all this heaviness that pulls us down, as the layers of tension, confusion and attachment are dissolved in the light of our own loving awareness, and we begin to realise a sense of inner freedom.

This is possible even for you, because underneath it all you have pure awakened nature. There are examples of both men and women in our Sangha (spiritual community of Open Heart) who are married with children, and jobs to go to, who have had awakening experiences of both mind and heart, and come to know who they truly are — a lasting experience of total freedom and intimacy with the world.

I'm an Acharya (instructor) for Open Heart, a contemporary yogic lineage founded by Amrita Baba, that combines teachings from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Christianity, as well as Western psychotherapy and movement modalities, with a focus on techniques that work.

These healing meditations are good for people whatever your level of experience.

For those interested in taking this practice further, I offer teachings in the Buddhist and Hindu ta***ic paths of my lineage, as well as a practice that leads directly to non-dual awakening, and trauma healing practices.

If you have any questions, or want to know more but are unable to attend classes, feel free to direct message me.

May you be healed, healthy, happy, and free.
Nataraja

Open Heart is a yogic meditative path for awakening and inner freedom for modern people with busy lives. The meditation practices reveal our natural inner clarity, calm, love and joy by dissolving attachment and seeing through the illusion of the ego. Beneath the rigid walls of our ego lies our natu

07/05/2026

Modern life often leaves us stressed, mentally and emotionally drained, and quietly longing for something deeper.

Over time, layers of tension, pressure, and emotional heaviness can gradually close us down and disconnect us from our natural sense of openness, joy, and ease.

Drawing from the teachings of Open Heart — a yogic spiritual path of awakening and inner freedom for people living ordinary modern lives — these weekly sessions take a grounded and experiential approach to meditation and inner transformation, emphasising direct experience and clear tangible changes through practice, rather than belief or dogma.

This path of practices help us work through the layers of inner tension, open the heart, and reconnect us with a deeper sense of presence, warmth, and joyful ease.

Weekly sessions begin again this Sunday, come join us!

**Weekly guided meditation sessions to help you find more calm, joy, and natural ease in your life.** Modern life often leaves us stressed, mentally and emotionally draine

02/02/2026

Free Guided Meditation + Courses and Workshops – in Chester, Amrita Mandala style

We’re offering free guided meditation sessions in Chester, exploring mindfulness, loving-kindness, and insight practices.

A calm, relaxed, grounded space to explore meditation, release built-up tension, and reconnect with inner ease, clarity, and quiet joy.

Alongside this, we also offer small-group workshops working with subtle energy and awakened awareness, drawing on non-dual Ta**ra (Mantrayana) in a practical, experiential way that’s suitable for modern life.

All are welcome — no belief system required, just an openness to explore experience directly.

I’ve recently moved to Chester to join forces with my good friend Shaun Duffy, who has a great location for our sessions: a studio above Sleepstore Chester (Sealand Road). The photo is of us on an Amrita Mandala retreat last summer in Slovenia.

You can find all upcoming sessions and full details on our Meetup page below.

Best wishes,
Nataraja

Amrita Mandala is a spiritual path of healing and awakening for ordinary modern people with busy lives. The meditation practises reveal our natural inner calm, clarity, love and joy, by dissolving our attachments and seeing through the illusion of the ego structure. Underneath the rigid walls of our

29/01/2026

Amrita Mandala is a spiritual path of healing and awakening for ordinary modern people with busy lives. The meditation practises reveal our natural inner calm, clarity, love and joy, by dissolving our attachments and seeing through the illusion of the ego structure. Underneath the rigid walls of our ego is revealed our own potential to heal our weary hardened heart, see beauty and wonder in the world again, and discover our ability to live in natural ease beyond the fear of impermanence and death.

After some good feedback with our first couple of sessions in Chester, we're working out our diary for the next few events.

The next free session will be on Sunday 8th February, hope you can make it (see below). Stay tuned for further dates.

*A relaxed, welcoming meditation session open to everyone — nourishing guided meditation for calming the mind and healing the heart that anyone can do.* **When?** Sunday 8

20/01/2026

“Peace” – is not the goal of meditation.

Firstly, we want to experience the full richness of life, not just "peaceful" states. What about joy, excitement, passion, and fun? Peace becomes attractive mainly when we’re overwhelmed, anxious, fearful, or when life feels overly chaotic or hectic. Then peace is a relief! Isn't it true that what we’re really after is to be fully present to all of life's rich experiences, with a stable presence of mind, and unbound by fear and full of love, joy and wonder?

We want to be free of states like overwhelm and frustration that pull us away from presence and from fully inhabiting our lives. And this is only possible if our presence is stable and steadfast across the whole range of conditions life offers us. This is the underlying peace we’re actually seeking.

Yet as soon as we begin to "chase" peace, we imply to our psyche that peace is somewhere other than right here with us, in this moment. We assume peace is something other than our nature.

Try to remember a time when you felt truly peaceful. Perhaps you were watching the sky, noticing the leaves of a tree moving in the wind, a flock of birds in formation, or some ripples on a lake. In such times, if you notice closely, you’ll see that these moments didn’t take any effort. The environment simply created the conditions for peace and joy to arise spontaneously. In fact, if you reflect, you'll likely notice that times when peace evaded you was when you were desperately searching for it – efforting disrupted the peace of these experiences.

The Mahayana path of meditation understands joy, peace, love, and compassion not as states to be achieved, but as qualities that are naturally and spontaneously present in us already. It is our habitual fixation on them as something outside ourselves that keeps us chasing them away. All states are temporary, even the most blissful meditative absorptions – they arise and they pass. So this is not what we're after.

This is why meditation is fundamentally a path of "insight". We begin to see emotions as unfixed and impermanent, not solid – like clouds passing through the sky. And like the sky, we discover that the mind itself cannot be truly harmed by the storm clouds and thunder.

This is easier said than understood when emotions feel treacherous and turbulent. Insight deepens as we gradually and tenderly allow difficult emotions the space to express themselves. There is often much buried pain beneath the surface, but the monsters under the bed are always scarier in the dark, before we turn a light to them.

By first grounding awareness firmly in the physical body, we establish stability, before gently and carefully turning our awareness as an act of compassion to ourselves to those more difficult sensations as they arise. Over time, we learn that a grounded, peaceful presence is available even when life feels turbulent. We stop living in avoidance and begin living more intimately with life – with greater richness, less fear, and more love.

So rather than aiming for a peaceful meditation, we learn to recognise peace as the capacity to remain present with whatever arises. As we open ourselves to this, meditation may even feel less peaceful for a while. But when we stop chasing peace as a state, it gradually reveals itself as the ground of experience – even in the midst of turbulence. A deeper, more stable peace.

11/01/2026

Feeling really appreciative for the 6 lovely and friendly faces that joined our first session this morning. Very engaged and keen, so it was a delight to lead, and with lots of interesting questions for me at the end, so we dove into a few quite topics in a short space of time.

If there is anything you're still wondering about, because we covered quite a lot, you're welcome to get in touch with me.

This is actually my first week in Chester, so it was nice that this went well, and to get things going. My thanks to Shaun who has so generously allowed us the space to use. We hope to make good use of it in the coming months!

So hope you can join us for the next free session in a couple of weeks on Sunday 25th January (RSVP here)...
https://www.meetup.com/amrita-mandala-uk/events/312513370/

We also have a 5 week course coming up, which will be on Tuesday evenings from Tue 27th Jan, called 'Heart Yoga - Heal and Awaken the Heart' – a loving kindness and compassion practise for centring and gently opening the heart, meaning ~ our experience of life and love in our heart gently opens out too ~.

The course format allows us to progress our understanding of the practise so that it can enrich your home meditation and life. If you're curious you can find out more and sign up here:
https://www.meetup.com/amrita-mandala-uk/events/312221827/

Warmly,

Nataraja 🙏

10/01/2026

This is our first event in Chester! Looking forward to meeting some of you tomorrow, Sunday 11th January at 11am - 12.30pm.

Below is the link to the Meetup page with the details.

The intention is to keep things simple, welcoming, and light-hearted. We’ll explore deep relaxation, releasing inner tension, and discovering a sense of spaciousness, ease, and calm. I’ll also share some reflections on the early stages of meditation and how to make it more enjoyable and sustainable, with time for questions at the end.

If you haven’t RSVP’d yet, you’re still very welcome to come along — no pressure either way.

If you’re coming tomorrow, please feel free to arrive a few minutes early. We’re above Sleepstore, which has its own parking. Come up the stairs to the left of Sleepstore (CH1 4LS — opposite Dunelm, next to Stoker’s Furniture). There’ll be tea and biscuits available, so feel free to make yourself a brew. Wear comfortable clothing. Chairs and meditation mats with cushions are provided, but bring anything you need to sit comfortably.

If you’re new to meditation or feeling unsure, that’s completely fine — you’re very welcome just as you are.

Warm wishes,

Nataraja

https://www.meetup.com/amrita-mandala-uk/events/312513015

04/01/2026

Meditation is a chance to go within and take time for ourselves. It can be a precious opportunity to take respite from the world, to take a moment from the chaos that can be our lives, to reconnect with our inner stillness. A sacred space that allows for true healing to occur.

Though, that transition from going about your ordinary day to taking some time for yourself for meditation is a tricky one. This resistance is perfectly natural.

We don’t need to fight it so much. Emotions and thoughts are part of the path in meditation, we don’t try to deny them. Rather, they are seen as beneficial to the path. We use the various tools of the mandala of meditation to bring us into presence, and within this space of awareness we give our emotions and thoughts the space they need to play themselves out. In this way we get to know ourselves, and in getting to know ourselves we begin to heal.

The more our meditation begins to feel like a space of nurturing, how it soothes us, the more enjoyable it becomes, and the more inclined we will be to want to get back to this space of meditation.

01/01/2026

Chester meditation classes, courses and workshops - Amrita Mandala style!

Happy New Year folks,

This January I'm moving to Chester to join forces with my good friend Shaun Duffy to begin meditation classes and workshops. Shaun has a great location for our sessions, a studio above 'Sleepstore Chester' (opposite Dunelm on Sealand Road, CH1 4LS).

We're going to begin with a couple of free meditation sessions on Sunday 11th and 25th January, both at 11am - 12.30pm. These will be nice and easy going guided sessions suitable for all levels of experiences, focusing on simple techniques that bring one into presence and calm, as well as gentle loving kindness practises to heal the heart. You can find out about them on our events page here:
https://fb.me/e/8oFb06J1S

We will also begin our first course 'Heart Yoga: Heal and Awaken the Heart' which will run every Tuesday for 5 weeks from Tuesday 27th January, we hope you can join us for that. It will be a chance to go more in depth into a heart healing practise known as Tonglen, a way to make your meditation practises much richer and more fruitful through loving kindness. Find out about it on our Meetup page here:
https://www.meetup.com/amrita-mandala-uk/events/312221827/

In the near future we will also begin weekend workshops to teach the essential basics of Amrita Kriya Yoga and Rainbow Body Yoga practises. These are the powerful foundational yogic practises of Amrita Mandala Sangha as taught by head teacher Amrita Baba, as a pragmatic path of healing and awakening to enlightenment for ordinary modern day spiritual seekers. So stay tuned.

We eventually hope that enough of you will be interested and benefit from what we do so that we can form a group (a Sangha - spiritual community) in Chester to meet regularly and practise more deeply together the teachings of Amrita Mandala, including mini retreats.

Here's me and Shaun on an Amrita Mandala retreat last summer in Slovenia at Amrita Baba's Ashram.

Wishing you a joyful start to the New Year.

Nataraja

Amrita Mandala is a spiritual path of healing and awakening for ordinary modern people with busy lives. The meditation practises reveal our natural inner calm, clarity, love and joy, by dissolving our attachments and seeing through the illusion of the ego structure. Underneath the rigid walls of our