Eight Great Matters of the Heart for Our Evolutionary Development and Potential

Exploring the Human Sun HEART Work's Contributions to Consciousness, Character, and Culture — and What They Can Mean for You

Saturday and Sunday, May 17-18 on Zoom
10-12:30 PT each morning and 1:15-3:45 each afternoon
 

Presented and facilitated by pioneers of embodied awakening, Saniel Bonder & Linda Groves-Bonder

"This is different!"

In late 1992, after more than two decades of intense seeking and spiritual practice, Saniel Bonder went through a culminating process of embodied spiritual awakening. 

During those few months he felt, again and again, that what he was going through was unlike anything he'd previously experienced, learned, or even heard about.

Shortly afterward, as he experimentally helped others go through similar transformations, they almost invariably had a similar recognition.

Most of them were longtime meditators and spiritual practitioners, with extensive experience in other traditional and then-current paths. Time and again, especially after their own awakenings had stabilized, they would say things like, "This is different!"

A good example is the name by which the process became known: "Waking Down®," in obvious contrast to the popular meme of "waking up."

Later Saniel added an important and also uncommon phrase, naming the path "Waking Down in Mutuality®."

The work has continually evolved and taken many new and distinctive expressions. In recent years Saniel and his wife and full teaching and coaching partner Linda Groves-Bonder have given it the overall name, "The Human Sun HEART Work™."

In this upcoming weekend seminar, Saniel and Linda will present a summary overview of:

> how the Human Sun HEART Work works, and how it can work for you at this stage of your own journey,

> what unique contributions it makes to human being and becoming, and

> how it "fits" with our evolutionary history as a species, and with its traditional precedents and contemporary transformational offerings.

Linda and Saniel look forward to hosting lively discussions and  leading experiential practices with those who attend this groundbreaking event.

In what follows they speak to you personally. 

"Spirituality is itself evolving"

We have great respect, appreciation, and gratitude for so much of what tradition represents for humanity, in all kinds of ways.

And we admire other contemporary researchers and fellow pioneers in the fields of human growth, healing, awakening, and transformation. 

So, for us exploring differences is not opposing or diminishing other approaches. 

Paraphrasing the great 17th century scientist Isaac Newton, if our  work is "seeing farther," it's because it's always standing on the mighty shoulders of tradition — and, a paradox, simultaneously bowing at tradition's feet.

It's also standing shoulder to shoulder with the far-seeing discoveries and revelations of many other current explorers.

As one of Saniel's mentors, the late Brooks Greene-Barton, said, "Spirituality is not just evolutionary. It is itself evolving."

By attending the seminar you can find out how our Human Sun HEART Work's evolutionary contributions might further your own unique, whole-being exploration of being alive, wherever you are currently in your journey.

All are welcome, regardless of your previous experience, current practices, and other aspects of your background. No previous exposure to our work is necessary, though you certainly might find it helpful. 

More about your seminar leaders

Saniel: "I come from a Jewish family that moved from New York City to a small, almost entirely Protestant southern town when I was seven.

"In the summer of 1970, midway through my undergraduate years at Harvard with an Honorary National Scholarship, I read my first book about mystical yoga. It literally blew my mind and totally derailed me from any conventional career track. I did, however, make sure to get my B.A., in Social Relations.

"I devoted the next two decades plus to a no-holds-barred quest to access and stably embody the inconceivable spiritual reality I'd glimpsed that summer. 

"After many further adventures, that quest was graced with the deeply cellular-visceral, unshakable, and non-dual awakening mentioned above. The unexpectable nature of what I'd gone through and where I'd 'landed' had an immense impact on my life going forward.

"It led me to question everything I'd previously learned and embark on radically experimental work to help others awaken. Many hundreds have done so over the years, and many dozens of them have become independent transmitters, healers, and teachers. What a blessing to be able to serve in these ways!

"That total awakening process never shrinks from encountering, recognizing, and integrating the 'shadow' dimensions of our full humanity, or from the challenges of relationship in all its forms. It's never been just a bath of bliss for any of us, myself very much included. 

"I've written a number of books about the work, including Waking Down and Healing the Spirit/Matter Split.  

"The most wonderful gift among so many that have come my way is my beloved wife and full partner in our work, Linda Groves-Bonder:

Linda: "I've been an artist from childhood, exploring many media. I got a degree in Art Education from Ball State University and for many years was a professional singer-songwriter and photo-stylist.

"Born and raised Catholic, I moved on from that to become an eclectic seeker. I had lots of inspiring experiences and in some ways made great progress.

"But something was still missing. I kept feeling a gnawing void in my core, in my solar plexus. Nothing I learned, practiced, or experienced seemed to touch it. 

"I became attracted to Saniel's work in the early years after his realization. He spoke directly to that void I felt, calling it 'the core wound.' 

"In less than two years I landed in the whole-being awakening he was teaching and transmitting, which we call the 'Second Birth.'

"Not long after that realization I became a teacher of this process, helping many others grow, heal, awaken, and express their gifts.  

"I use art in my teaching and coaching, through my music and vocal toning albums, I'm Here and Joy of Being, and also imaginative guided meditations such as 'The Golden Liquid Nectar of Conscious Love-Trust.'

"During the first couple of years of my work with Saniel, he and I also became intimate partners. We formally married several years later. To say that we're happily married is an understatement! We are so blessed, to be together serving in these ways."

We both were Founding Members of Ken Wilber's Integral Institute and Charter Members of the Integral Spiritual Center. We've presented at various conferences and retreats around the world and are frequent guests on leading-edge podcasts. With our two beloved cats, we live outside Sonoma, California, surrounded by pastures, vineyards, and rolling northern California hills.  

Something ancient, something new,

Something different — something YOU

For the two of us, it's humbling and enriching to live this extraordinary condition in our ordinary moments and relationships. We're always doing our best to listen and learn, and to stay true to ourselves while honoring and serving others and all Life as best we can.

As so many others have also discovered, the post-awakening process can present its own unexpectable shadow challenges as well as marvelous, bright blessings. That's a gift of the Heart through Waking Down in Mutuality that never stops giving!

Since the mid-teens, we've been focusing on coaching emerging leaders, healers, and change-makers and finding ways to reach wider audiences of, in Linda's words, "hungry or hurting hearts."

The Always Emerging seminar marks a culmination and, simultaneously, a next-phase continuation of our longtime mission: the divinely human Heart-awakening of humanity — heart by heart, body by body. 

Paraphrasing a Victorian-era rhyme about things a bride should have on her wedding day for good luck in her marriage, we suggest this Human Sun HEART approach can become a good luck charm for you:

Something ancient, something new

Something different — something YOU

This work can quicken and streamline your embodied awakening, ongoing integration, character development, and expression of your greater purpose and potential, in ways unique to you personally.

The Human Sun HEART Work may someday be widely recognized as a Heart-generated, self-democratizing innovation in human being and becoming — helping many advance our consciousness, character, and culture.

In the here and now, let's see what it reveals for you through this Always Emerging seminar.   

The sessions:

The Eight Great Matters of the HEART

In these summary notes, we'll try to distill the essence of what each session will explore. 

We can't do justice here or in the seminar to the innumerable extraordinary human beings, historically and in present time, all over the world, whose contributions to humanity have helped make this Human Sun HEART Work possible.

In the seminar we will cite a few crucial figures and communications by name.

We repeatedly use the term "Great" in the session titles, acknowledging that these have been or are species-wide factors in our history, our present, and/or our potential future.

And, whether the summary points make it explicit or not, each of these factors is a "Great Matter of the HEART." 

These statements may raise more questions than they can answer. We're not asking for your belief or agreement, but rather your passionate curiosity.

We invite you to bring your questions to the seminar!

Saturday Session 1

1. The Great HEART Light

An auspicious, East/West meeting of spirituality and science in the "Heart" or, all caps, "HEART," took place in the 20th century. Our main message to all, "the Sun in your Heart is rising," points to that ultimate Heart-Reality coming ever more alive and awake in, as, and through every body, all sentient beings, and All that exists.

Through a specific guided meditation and in other ways, you may get a feeling or intution of that radiance of Being in this session — in yourself and in mutuality with others. We'll suggest potential evolutionary implications of that Heart-emergence for you and us all.

2. The Great HEART Wound

First appearing in the mists of prehistory, also called the "core wound," this Heart wound is a hidden pain or chasm at the core of our sense of being and thus of our whole lives. Other species don't appear to suffer it. It may be the primary driver of our endless seeking, growing, and changing.

This core or Heart wound is not the result of previous experience or trauma. It's existential, rather than psychological or emotional. As we become more sensitive to it, in it, and as it, we feel and intuitively recognize it as a paradox of simultaneous, whole-being wound and wellness. 

In this session, through conversation and exercises enhancing this kind of sensitivity, we'll help you get a feel for and clarify the difference between this core or Heart wound and personal, psychological core issues. 

Saturday Session 2 

3. The Great Split/Climb

Emerging into predominance in the last 10,000 years or so, the "Spirit/Matter split" carves reality into binary distinctions: God and flesh, emptiness and form, sacred and profane, darkness and light, etc. Historically it has manifested as a spiritual and/or mental ascent, a "climb" into being mind- and brain-based from an earlier heart-based seat of awareness.

Advanced yogis have sought and achieved an ascended or world-preceding, dissociated spiritual transcendence; more ordinary people have found themselves suffering grave separateness and disconnection.

Through this session's conversation and exploration, you may become aware of how this Spirit/Matter split has shown up in your life and relationships and perhaps continues to. 

4. The Great Conflation

The now-emerging "integral" frequency of our being and becoming is both integrating and moving us beyond earlier magical, mythical, and mental-rational "structures of consciousness." 

However, persisting from those earlier structures and paths, there's a danger of perpetuating the Spirit/Matter split through a "Great Conflation" that confuses developmental unreadiness or immaturity for existential error, sin, or karma. It's a little like telling a 12-year old, "You should be 20 now! Here's how. You're getting it wrong. Stop resisting!"

In this session we'll investigate how this conflation may have affected each of us in our own lives. For many, it's been an unquestioned, disempowering, and sometimes even traumatizing assumption about ourselves, our suffering, and our potential growth, awakening, and optimal well-being.   

Sunday Session 1

5. The Great Co-Option

Humanity's initiation into each next structure or frequency of being and becoming is inevitably resisted by the previously dominant frequency — and often co-opted by it. 

In our time a mental-rational and also volitional preoccupation with "doing," through frenetic, willful action and practice, may unintentionally alter, distort, or suppress the potential "being" virtues of the integral emergence.

Sometimes there is great power and clarity in simply being and not trying to fix, change, escape, or outgrow.

In the session we'll see if this perspective has meaning for you. If it does, we'll help you learn how to implement it in your daily life — without making that very action another urgent project of "doing"!

6. The Great Fail/Fall

As a new existential frequency emerges, the older ones, especially the most recently dominant one, no longer fully meet the needs of humanity's evolutionary vanguard.

In our current multi-century transition from mental-rational-volitional fixation to integral Heart-embodiment, this "Great Fail" is increasingly experienced as a "Great Fall": the feeling of being gravitates down from brain-mind centrism into Heart-based, whole-being presence. Hence, "Waking Down"! 

We'll explore this Great Fail/Fall through guided meditation and tracking back in your journey, to see if something along these lines has already taken place or is currently getting underway. 

Sunday Session 2

7. The Great HEART Reveal

An historic sequence of events has recently transpired in the Heart's evolutionary Self-disclosure as the divinely human core of our existence.

Key revelations: the site in the physical heart that's both the origin of the heartbeat and the primordial seat of ultimate Being-knowing; how both advanced yogis and everyday people may fall and expand into Heart-based, whole-being awakeness; and how that all-inclusive Identity, sometimes called "interbeing," announces its presence in our ordinary lives and relationships. 

Far from an isolated transcendental state of Self, this disposition spontaneously recognizes and embraces the unique divine humanity of every Other and all beings and things. Hence, "Waking Down in Mutuality!"

Here we'll make sure to hear from some of you who've moved through these or other dimensions of this Great HEART Reveal. And we'll welcome everyone to explore what it does or might mean for you to do so yourself! 

8. The Great HEART World

The deep future of that Great HEART Reveal, we propose, will be the alignment of all human consciousness, character, and culture to an increasingly obvious marvel: the HEART as our whole World. Vital, lived paradoxes of the simultaneity of Spirit and Matter, God and flesh, heaven and earth, sacred and profane, and so on, will abound.

As we titled the final session of our course called "Maximizing Joy," it will be a World of "What the One Great Heart We All Share Won't Settle for Less Than!"

Between now and that great blossoming — many long rows to hoe, much to plant, and many harvests along the way. May we each and all, and all those to come, rise to our own callings in service to that one, Mysterious, Being-democratizing Heart!  

In this closing session we'll discuss how you and we all have been and are contributing our unique gifts to humanity's "Always Emerging" and deepening connection to and participation in and as that Great HEART World.

We will meditate. We will invoke. And we will together send our potent Heart-blessings to all our human sisters and brothers, all living beings, and all Creation!

The simple session format

> Each session will begin with brief periods of gazing and meditation.

> Saniel and Linda will then give a 25-35 minute summary overview of the first HEART Matter to be covered in that session.

> We’ll then have Q&A and conversation about those topics, including one or more experiential exercises, until halfway through that session.

> We’ll take a 5-10 minute bio-break.

> Then we’ll repeat the same sequence, investigating the second HEART Matter to be explored in that session.

> Between the first and second sessions each day, we'll take a 45-minute break.

Fees

> Regular fee: $248. From Thursday, April 24, until the event on May 17-18.

Stay tuned on this offering, more info to come!

If you're not ready to register, but it sounds like something you might want to plug into, hold that weekend of May 17-18 open in your calendar.

If you have any questions, please reach out to us at [email protected]. We will be happy to serve you. 

And, whatever it takes, please do hang in there in these very strange, testing times.

May you have the strength, resilience, confidence and grace to turn your adversities into opportunities, and to help others do the same in whatever ways sing to your heart!

Not just you but the whole world needs your greatest joy, peace, tenderness, toughness, discernment, boldness, generosity, perseverance, and radiant lovingkindness.

Please find your best ways to maximize all of the above!

We intend this Always Emerging seminar to be a tremendous resource to help you do just that.

Sending you our love and Heart-blessings, with deep appreciation for who you are and are becoming,

Saniel and Linda

Saniel Bonder & Linda Groves-Bonder
Human Sun Institute