The Wind of Emptiness
Sufi-Zen Meditation camp and Retreat. Kyrghizstan.
"Meditation and love together are supportive energies for each other.
If you love, you will be able to meditate more deeply, if you meditate you will be able to love more totally.
They go on helping each other.
Slowly a pyramid is created in your consciousness.
By the bricks of love and meditation one can reach the highest peak of existence.
...Just as the bird has two wings, let love and meditation be your two wings..."
∼ Osho
Sufi is the expression of the ancient wisdom of the heart, and the path of love born from that wisdom. Zen is the silence, the sky, of that wisdom.
This unique process is a journey to silence through love, and to love through silence.
Zikhr, breath, music, dance, poetry, the Sufi path and joy, will take us into the open space of the heart, the door, the bridge, to the silent lake of our being.
A structured process of Sufi whirling, Zen sitting, and Zen walking.
Whirling take us into the many expression of ourselves and finally to the state of union; sitting in Zazen, listening to Sufi poetry and Zen haiku will help to remember the wisdom and the silence of our true nature. Finding the silence, the stillness, in our whirling, and the song, the dance in our sitting. This camp is a powerful process of emptying ourselves, an atmosphere where love and prayer flower into meditation.
A path to allow the empty space to be revealed
The Sufi-Zen Camp and Retreat will happen on the shore of Issyk-Kul lake, Kirghizstan, a place of wild beauty, in the magic and ancient mountains of Tien-Shan (Celestial Mountain) at the heart of Central Asia. Living in yurtas, the circular tent of the nomads, totally absorbed in the energy of the nature.
Sufi-Zen Meditation Retreat
"After the camp, we will have a Sufi-Zen Meditation Retreat. It's an opportunity to assimilate, to absorb, and settle into the meditative space, particularly after the intensity of the camp process. The Retreat, characterized by silence and deep introspection, gives the space to deepen and maintain the awareness. Meditation itself is the retreat..."
"As the birds sing each morning at sunrise, the heart fills with song at the dawn of meditation. As flowers bloom in spring, the soul is drenched in fragrance as meditation is born. As everything glisters green beneath the rain, consciousness shines with many colors as meditation showers. All this and much more takes place, and this is only the beginning. Ultimately, everything goes: fragrance, color, light, music...everything disappears. And an inner space, like the sky, appears. Empty, formless, without quality...."
∼Osho
"We have burned all traces of work and profession,
We have nothing now but poetry and love songs.
We sing of the heart, soul and beloved,
Only to burn all traces of heart, soul and beloved."
∼Mevlana
About Issy-kul lake
The Sufi-Zen camp will be at Issyk-Kul lake, a place with a unique and special magic energy. We already had many Sufi Meditation camp there, sometimes as long as one month....
Once, being there, we came to know that in ancient time, just at the spot where "by chance" we were having the Sufi camp, the Dervishes of Central Asia used to meet and gather every year....
The all area have a strong and ancient Shamanic tradition, and many "energy-place" (Mazars) all around. We will visit and practice in some of those "Mazars"....
Issyk-Kul is an ancient big lake, 160 km. long, and 80 km wide, located in the most western part of the Tien-Shan mountains ( Celestial Mountains ), in Kirghizstan, bordering Tibet, Xinxiang, and Kazakhstan.
It's at 1.600 meters high, and it's along the Southern part of the ancient Silk Road.
All around the lake are wonderful mountains, reaching 5/6.000 meters high, where still now, live many many wild horses and eagles.
Very often amazing rainbows appear in the sky at Issyk-Kul lake....
We will all stay in a "yurt village". Yurts are the tents, made of felt, of the nomads of Central Asia and Mongolia. Their shape is of a circle, a symbolic representation of the sky, of a meeting place of the nomads, a circle of friends, a way of living without corners. A sky, in the night filled by millions of stars.... Sometimes we whirl under such a sky....
"This is love.
To fly towards a secret sky.
To cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First to let go of live, in the end, to take a step without feet.
To regard this world as invisible, and to disregard what appears to be the self.
Heart, I said, what a gift it has been to enter this circle of lovers.
To see beyond seeing itself, to reach and feel within the breast."
∼Mevlana
What to bring
At Issyk-Kul, like most of Central Asia, the weather is dry. So in the day can be hot, and nights may get cold; also remember it's 1.600 meters high, bring warm clothes, wind-jacket, trekking shoes, etc., as well as light clothes. Sessions will happen inside a very large yurt. Bedding and blankets are provided, but you may want to bring also your sleeping bag .
Sun-glasses, sun-cream, hat for the sun and for the cold, a towel, and a torch (flash light). Bring the medicine you might need (there will be also a doctor at the camp), and whatever else you might feel needed. Do not forget your whirling skirt...!
"We have burned all traces of work and profession,
We have nothing now but poetry and love songs.
We sing of the heart, soul and beloved,
Only to burn all traces of heart, soul and beloved."
∼Mevlana
How to get there
Arrive at Bishkek, the capital of Kirghizstan....
If you fly to Bishkek it's a good information to know the city airport code (FRU), since sometimes even travel agency never heard, or don't know where this city is located.... Let us know your arrival time in Bishkek, we will come to welcome you at airport.
Camp start on 1st September; you should be in Bishkek latest by 30th August, since on 31st August we will go all together, by mini-van, from Bishkek to our destination, Tsor, a village on the South coast of Issyk-Kul lake, about 5 hours drive.
If, for some reason, you arrive later, let us know ! You can also reach Tsor by yourself; in Bishkek it's possible to rent a taxi, or can get a mini-bus to Karakol, a city at the end of Issyk-Kul lake; stop at Tsor, near Tamga village, about 80 km. before Karakol. (Mini-bus trip will be longer then 5 hours...).
When in Tsor ask for the Meditation Yurt camp near the shore... (Can't speak Russian or Kirghiz...? Smell the air, follow the Sufi perfume, we are not far-away...).
"In my ten-feet bamboo hut.
This spring,
There is nothing;
There is everything."
∼(Zen Haiku)
Camp: 1 September — 14 September 2019
Retreat: 15 September — 21 September 2019
TSOR - ISSY-KUL LAKE
(SOUTH COAST)
KIRGHIZSTAN
"If we are a mystery, then avoid this alley.
If you can't tear off your clothes,
Don't come to this stream.
This place from which all emanates
Is no place for cowards, so continue on your way.
But if you catch the scent of what awaits you here,
And the fragrance draws you near,
Then come, please come.
If you would tear off all your clothes,
Jump right in and drawn,
In these waters you'll be lost, but Love is found.
For this is where the heart exist, and all road lead to this.
Here they begin and then return.
So come, please come."
∼Mevlana
Information and Booking
Videha email:videha1@gmail.com Tel: +39-339-2662114. (Mob.)+39-389-5204233.
Videha. Osho disciple since 1980. Initiated into the Mevlevi Sufi Order of Konya ("The Whirling Dervishes"), Videha integrates the Sufi Path into Osho's vision and love. For years as a Zazen meditation practitioner, he has traveled and trained in Mongolia, China, Taiwan, Central Asia, Tibet, where he got many initiations. He is leading groups, seminars, camps and meditation retreats all over the world since more then 25 years, uniting the path of love and the path of meditation.
"All the work is inspired by Osho teachings , my Master and an endless source of compassion and wisdom, an inexhaustible mine of Dharma teaching treasures".