Nature & Providence
balancing the elements of a transitioning age
July 30 - Aug 12, 2027
Bali
Indonesia​​​​​​​
Sow the seeds of My divine wisdom in the pure soil of thy heart, and water them with the water of certitude, that the hyacinths of My knowledge and wisdom may spring up fresh and green in the sacred city of thy heart.
~Bahá'u'lláh
​Bali is an amazing place to reconnect with nature and imbibe how nature heals and teaches. Thus, it is of no surprise at all that the increasingly famous Green School was built in Bali. It attracts parents from around the world who want to give their children a holistically healthy education with nature as its medium, and with the intent of bringing up "green leaders."
Speaking of green leaders . . .​
Workshops & Presenters:​
Sustainable & Inspiring
Learning Environments
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We are excited to announce that Mr. Orin Hardy will be one of our key presenters. Orin is one of the founding family members of Green School, teaches farming, permaculture, and how to build inspiring, sustainable, and magnificent learning environments with bamboo. Orin's education was also influenced by his childhood at the Maxwell International Baháʼí School in Canada and his world travels. He has a vast wealth of knowledge and knows how to skillfully impart it to his work and his students.
Although the Hardy family has moved on to other green adventures, Green School is still an important place to visit for anyone who wants to foster sustainable living and green education. However, we will not end our tour there. Adjacent to Green School is Bamboo U; a place Orin developed so that people may come from around the world to learn about this extraordinary building material. But, like Green School, the education is very hands-on. Students learn to express their inner architect and artist by, literally, designing and building these inspiring and interactive works of art.
In the sea he findeth a drop.
In a drop he beholdeth the secrets of the sea.
Split the atom’s heart, and lo!
Within it thou wilt find a sun.
~ Baha'u'llah
The Universal Medicine Wheel
Elementary Education
Taught By Mother Nature
Countless cultures from every corner of the globe have studied the elements of nature for ages. It was a necessity for survival but also a tool for wisdom, problem solving, and healing. In fact, in both Indian Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine the elements are still given the utmost consideration for both healing and success in all aspects of life. Meanwhile, most modern schools and hospitals of today extract students and/or patients away from the attributes of the elements. Furthermore, social media platforms, including those designed to educate, not only extract the growth of children from the natural environment (as they artificially experience the world through digital screens) but from face to face human interactions as well.
Could it be that the wisdom of the elements is returning to us as both a necessity for survival but also as a means of reconnecting with the most essential elements of our humanity?​
Baha'i's know that the virtues are pivotal to our standing as humans. The ancient medicine wheels have long known what is pivotal to comprehending the virtues themselves. ​​​
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Consider the element of Earth. It's stability gives us a place to stand. If our feet are not planted upon its firmness, we cannot lift ourselves up. Acting as a mother, it nourishes and gives us strength. As it exemplifies the caregiver archetype, Earth demonstrates incredible acceptance and forgiveness. It is also the place where unity and diversity abide. These are just a few attributes of the earth, but we could also go on for quite a while about the flowing, cooling, healing, connecting, nurturing, depths of the Water element. Furthermore, we can explore the adaptability of Air as it exchanges, controls and releases, or the vision. openness and perspective of Space that calls us to new explorations, and the passion and joy of Fire as it leads the way to transformation. ​​​​​​​
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However, Fire has not only been described as the element of transformation in "Medicine Wheel" traditions found throughout the world. ​A well-known metaphor from 'Abdu'l-Bahá, explains that spiritual transformation requires the "heat" of divine love to melt away our material qualities and mold us into new beings.​ The passage teaches us how the iron, through the fire, relinquishes its innate coldness, darkness, and solidity to adopt the properties of light and heat. In this process, the iron is completely transformed, having sacrificed its original qualities to those of the fire. This is just one of many lessons that we can, not only derive from the medicine wheel, but see confirmed within Baha'i and many other religious texts. ​For example, Lee Brown, a Baha'i elder from a Native American tribe has pointed out that many medicine wheels from around the world share great similarities, such as a wheel from the southern states area that was found to be relatively identical to one in Kenya. Furthermore, he speaks of a prophecy known throughout North America and many other parts of the world. This prophecy speaks of each race as a guardian of one of the Sacred Elements or Spirits (i.e. Asians are considered the guardians of the Air Spirit, Africans are guardians of Water Spirit, etc) and of a day when all races will come together to share the knowledge and spiritual wisdom of the element they have been guardian over. The prophecy refers to this day as the gathering of the Rainbow People, the result of which will change the world.
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Presented by William Brashear
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( Click Here to read the entire fascinating transcript of Lee Brown's talk "North American Indian Prohecies", and learn how it relates to nature's elements.)​​​​​
FarmSchool Zambia
Out with the old, and in with the new!
The foundations of an old world order — raised on injustice and self-interest — now shudder with ever-deepening tremors. Work, learning, the very architecture of society — all fashioned in that old order's image — stand poised for seismic change. And technology, racing ahead unchecked, only quickens what was already stirring beneath the surface. Yet within this collapse, the seeds of a long-promised order — one woven from equity, dignity, and love — are being sown and tended by hands attuned to that Divine blueprint. Built not from above, but by grassroots communities working together, these tender saplings emerge quietly
— often in the most unlikely, unassuming soils.
At FarmSchool Zambia, we are tending but one such seed.
Whether it flowers into fullness or not, the wisdom gathered along the way is a harvest in itself.
As we take a peek into FarmSchool's journey, perhaps your input and ideas may help us explore
pathways yet undiscovered.
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Presented by Badi Yaganagi​​
Badi & Amita Yaganagi have run several schools and educational resource centers in India and other countries. Their success stories eventually found them heading up the international, Baha'i' Inspired, Banani School in Zambia, Africa. Amita primarily runs the Banani school while Badi has tended to developing a unique FarmSchool model among some villages nearby. FarmSchool, as the name implies, goes beyond an enclosed classroom. It integrates sustainable, holistic, farming as a teaching modality and a community empowerment project. It's way too much for us to go into here, but we will at this conference. However, you can get a headstart by reading more about it HERE.
Embodying Wisdom Through Movement & Dance
Description coming soon!
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Presented by Amita Yaganagi
Artificial Integrity
With answers to virtually everything at our finger tips today, it seems that modern schools would be cranking out geniuses. Unfortunately, however, studies are increasingly showing that a staggering number of schools today are graduating students with far less capacity for basic problem solving than those of generations ago. However, doing away with AI at this point seems highly improbable. Thus, the challenge is not about how to do away with it, but how to work with it. Furthermore, we may very well need AI to help humanity find ways to save the planet. In fact, AI experts are already under the consensus that AI can very well lead the way to saving the planet, but this would be contingent upon at least one of two things:
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1. How humans use AI / What they ask of it.
2. Humans getting out of the way (i.e. extinction) so that AI can save the planet.
Currently, AI only reflects what has gone before it / what we have put into it. Although it can make a trillion combinations and calculations with the information we enter into it, and it can seem vastly more intelligent than a human (even bordering upon otherworldly) it is still just a reflection of a vast collection of human knowledge.
Thus, it is existentially important as AI grows that it feeds upon,
and therefore reflects back to us,
the most noble and virtuous attributes that God has given us.
In other words, we want the virtues to guide where our education and planet is heading. Otherwise, we may be feeding soulless machines more of the endless programs that already reflect how to facilitate our destruction; programs AI has already learned solely from us humans! Thus, now is not the time to become complacent and let AI run everything for us; especially our schools according. For humanity has a rather large and ugly reflection both in the present day and all of the history leading up to today. Thus, now is the time to urgently focus upon how our virtues must drive the data that shall guide AI.
The Virtues Project: 2.0
Description coming soon!
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Presented by Donald Nicely
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Know Thyself
Observing the law of nature within​​
Many Buddhists believe that the Buddha taught a form of meditation known today as Vipassana. It is defined as Insight Meditation, but its literal meaning is "as it is", which implies becoming present with the truth of what one is experiencing within themselves. Therein we start to recognize patterns of reactivity, or what one might say "pushes their buttons". One way to look at this is referred to as the third option or the forgotten option. This implies that when something is upsetting we usually either react to it, or suppress it (which is also a reaction), but neither are ultimately healthy. Vipassana teaches the third option, which is to observe, rather than to react or suppress. When one does this they become very aware of themselves, witness what triggers them, and realizes that to observe is far better than to react. But, if an action is needed after ones buttons have been pushed, it does not come as a reaction. Instead it comes as a conscious response, born out of conscious observation rather than unconscious reactivity.​
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True loss is for him whose days have been spent in utter ignorance of his self.
~ Baha'u'llah
A (Yogic) Gap Year For All Ages
It is as rare to find someone who really knows himself as it is to find someone who truly knows what they want to make of their life. Nevertheless, one can easily see how these matters greatly correspond to each other. But, nevertheless, one often chooses a course of life without knowing either. In other words, how can we know what we want without really knowing ourself? And, how can we know what to do in the world without having experienced the possibilities beyond our own front door? A yogic gap year addresses both of these challenges and more. The yogic aspect teaches them how to know themselves {mind, body and spirit}, and the travel and service aspect opens their eyes to see beyond the local horizon.
However, it is not meant just for students of college age. In fact, the people that we have found most interested in this program are usually between jobs or of retirement age. However, having already been entrapped by the rush to "be somebody" during their college years and, therefore, having already graduated and entered the workforce (although usually with a degree that has nothing to do with the work they find), their urgency has slowed down, they are cautious not to get caught up in a new tide that is going in the wrong direction, and they truly want to research and evaluate both themselves and what they truly want to do with their lives.
In this session we will discuss the importance of this program and have a Q & A session for anyone interested in a gap year, including one that we can facilitate. In the meantime, however, you can learn a lot about it HERE.
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Presented by Will and Badi
If Yoga Was Religion...
It's already been mentioned that Bali is a magnet for nature lovers, but legions upon legions of aspiring yogis are drawn to Bali as well. However, yoga is also growing by leaps and bounds everywhere in the world. In fact, if yoga was a religion, it would not only be the world's fastest growing religion, but no other religion would come remotely close. However, although yoga is generally not considered a religion -by comparative definition- all religions are a form of yoga.
Religion is Latin, meaning:
to bind back and make whole.
Re - to bind back to source
Legio - to make whole
Yoga is a Sanskrit word that was originally pronounced Yogh;
which can be traced forward to the Greek:Yolk, and later to the Latin: Yoke.
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A yoke derives its meaning from an archaic Y shaped device that is used to yoke two or more wild beasts together so that they can work wholly as one, as well as be guided by the reins of the Driver. (Many depictions of this are seen in Hindu art.)
Simply put, the definition of yoga is relatively identical to the definition of religion:
to bind back and make whole.
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Yoga enthusiasts come from all religions and no religion (at least by the modern definition). Many also come with no belief in God as well, and yet clearly looking for something that those who do believe in God have found. In other words, they are among the most ardent seekers of that feeling of binding back to Source and feeling whole. And, once you get into a deeper conversation, you quickly find that concepts such as "Source" and phrases such as "the infinite wisdom of the Universe" are terms most atheistic yogis are completely agreeable with. Furthermore, theist yogis are usually already on board with the idea that all religions come from the same Source. Even yogis from Judeo-Christian backgrounds, through the study of yoga, are often very familiar with Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist teachings and practices. In fact, although they may have never thought about it, when you postulate that they all come from the same Source they usually and quite readily agree. In other words, yogis from around the world are among the most open to the teachings of the Baha'i Faith; a Faith that strives to Yoke the wild and diverse peoples and religions of the universe back to the One Source ~ to make humanity whole.
And yet most Baha'i's, like most people in general, know relatively little about yoga beyond breathing and stretching techniques; which are actually just the means to yoga when properly understood. Virtue, integrity, service, devotion, unity, oneness are the actual goals. Therein, Bahai's actually do know a lot about yoga; perhaps even more than most yogis.
Fearlessness, purity of heart,
perseverance in the yoga of knowledge,
charity, sense restraint, sacrifice,
study of the scriptures,
austerity, honesty, nonviolence, truthfulness, absence of anger,
renunciation, equanimity, abstaining from malicious talk,
compassion for all creatures, freedom from greed,
gentleness, modesty, absence of fickleness;
splendor, forgiveness, fortitude, cleanliness,
absence of malice, and absence of pride;
these are the qualities of those endowed
with divine virtues, O Arjuna…
Divine qualities lead to Nirvana...
~Krishna, Bhagavad Gita
Nevertheless, the typical techniques and practices we think of when yoga comes to mind are all excellent starting points for delving into deeper religious concepts and principles of all religions. For example, to Know Thyself is a teaching found in all religions, but not many religions give a lot of guidance how how to know one's self. However, this is where yoga excels!
Through Yoga, a Hindu becomes a better Hindu,
a Christian a better Christian, a Mohammedan a better Mohammedan, and a Jew a better Jew!
~Yogi Gupta
And one might add: 'a Baha'i' a better Baha'i'.'
Teaching the Baha'i Faith to Yoga Enthusiasts
A personal note from the event coordinator
Allah'u'abha!
This is Will! I am the coordinator of this event as well as a presenter. This is a bit of a personal note, so it doesn't seem quite right to describe this session as a third person. I have knowingly wanted to hold this event for about 3 years, but it wasn't until I started putting it together that it dawned on me that it is a culmination of something that was put in motion over two decades ago. Please allow me to explain . . .
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You may have noticed that besides an emphasis on nature, this conference also says a lot about yoga; to which i would like to emphasize once again that, if yoga was a religion it would be the fastest growing religion in the world by far -and- among those most ripe to embrace the teachings of the Baha'i Faith, yogis are among the ripest! ~ In fact, I came to the Baha'i Faith through yoga myself.
In 1988, at the age of 18, I found a book that was primarily about typical yoga practices, but it used those practices to introduce me to deeper spiritual truths that I had never encountered before; including the belief that there is truth in all true and unifying religions. Furthermore, before I found the Baha'i teachings I came to love the writings of a yogi named MK Gandhi. He was the first to proclaim to my ears the essential unity of religion. In 1989 (after a 4 day bike trip) I found and instantly embraced the Bahai Faith. In 2004 (after what some would call a "dark night of the soul" or what Krishna refers to as a stage of yoga called the yoga of dejection) I set out on a teaching tour of about a dozen major cities in India, wherein, probably by Divine coincidence, it landed in Bangalore at a unique time. All 9 members of the NSA of India and all 9 LSA members of Bangalore happened to be meeting together. Somehow the 2 Assemblies got word that I was currently in the area and invited me to meet with them. I was amazed to be invited or that they even knew about me, but I was having rather enormous success. Without really any plan as to how i would be teaching the Faith in india, I found myself giving talks everywhere, even the opening address at an Ayurvedic college. I was also interviewed by several major newspapers. And, after having seen one of these newspaper interviews, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (a famous guru associated with the Art of Living movement) invited me to come to his ashram. Nevertheless, my main intention was to discuss with various Baha'i communities throughout India a wide range of correlations my yogic and Baha'i studies had found, and was continuing to find. Therein, I found myself blessed to give this report to the 2 Assemblies that had gathered in Bangalore.
They had gathered to discuss many important things, but took a pause to give me about 15 minutes to discuss my travels. About 45 minutes, however, I was still presenting to them my findings which led to a consensus; which was that the work I was doing should continue and that I should create a compilation of findings.
~ Now, more than 20 years later, this compilation is in its 7th Edition as it is presented in a training manual for both Baha'i's, interested in yoga, and also as a professional Elemental Yoga Therapy training manual for all who are interested in yoga as a way to heal and spiritually develop for themselves and for the world; of which several hundred students have graduated since 2014. In fact, this program was also adopted by Antioch University Midwest (AUM) as a Master's degree program (entitled by the university as Integral Studies). In other words, much of this event in Bali is the fruit of over 2 decades of work that was inspired to continue after meeting with these 2 assemblies in India.
Although it is not confirmed, we are hopeful that Mas Saiful Anam, a member of the Indonesian NSA and resident of Bali, may also join us.
Daily Electives​
Elemental Yoga Classes
The campus for this retreat usually hosts yoga trainings that are run by Will & Jade. Every morning there will be a class in Elemental Yoga, which focuses of the energy channels of the body commonly known as meridians and which also are related to the various organs, which are related elements (earth, water, fire, air, space), which is related to certain virtues and attributes. Thus, in elemental yoga the student learns not only how to stretch, but also what meridians, organs and elemental qualities are stimulated.
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Adventurous Excursions
In addition to these great programs we will also take excursions off the campus for...
Waterfall & Jungle Hikes, Volcanoes, Snorkeling, Beach Excursions, Ancient Monkey Forest, Jungle Elephant Reserve, Sound Healing Pyramids, Balinese Dance & Cultural Events, Green School, and Much More!
Acu-Thai
Ayurvedic Yoga Massage
Jade & Will hold trainings in Ubud for this magical healing bodywork technique; and it will be offered daily to attendees of this retreat following the morning yoga class. (Learn more about AcuThai)
READY?
LET'S DO THIS!