LOVING ROCK KARMA YOGA TRAINING PROGRAM

“Your role is to be a loving rock, so another person can push against you and pull against you, and you stay rooted in love.” —Ram Dass

How do we do this?

Applications for the 2024 “Loving-Rock” cohort is officially closed. Applications for the 2025 cohort will open in the summer of 2024.

This is a “yoga teacher training,” except centered around karma yoga, the yoga of selfless service. The goal is to strengthen skills, compassion, and presence within the general community and to de-professionalize helper roles. This training is a central praxis of Sacred Community: Sacred Community awakening itself through compassionate action.

This is a one-year online program with minimal time commitment. This is something that a working parent can do while still balancing their other duties, and it is designed for compassionate beings who feel called to deepen their ability to be a “loving rock” as a part of their spiritual path.

A note from Sitaram Dass:

“This program developed over the last few years from listening to the needs of the SCP community. This listening has taken the form of facilitating SCP groups, offering spiritual counsel, responding to emails, or answering requests from the broader community for support, resources, or education. It seems to have grown naturally from the seeds of SCP’s core values, vision, and mission. When the Sacred Community Project first started, I don’t think any of us knew that these seeds would eventually bear this fruit, and I have watched with awe as SCP continues to grow into itself with the unfurling of each new branch. I am excited to offer this training along with the help of some dear friends and wise elders.”

This Year-Long Program Entails:

4-hour trainings

  • Spiritual Peer Support 101

  • Group Facilitation 101

  • Apprenticing Grief

  • Advanced Spiritual Support

  • Prison Letter Writing (only offered as needed)

Ongoing personal development

  • Receiving at least three individual spiritual support sessions

  • Attending regular “Satsang Hang” spiritual support groups

  • Monthly Q&As and group reflection

  • Course materials for personal study with online Discord for discussion groups

  • Accountability for personal practice and reflection

Learning and Practice

  • Loving-Awareness

  • Nishkam Karma

  • Souls not roles

  • Reflective listening

  • Mindful and heartful listening

  • Companioning not fixing

  • Spiritual friendship

  • Apprenticing grief

  • Basic knowledge of power, privilege, and intersecting oppressions

  • Cultural humility

Seva: offering direct spiritual support through SCP

  • Spiritual Support

  • Group Facilitation

  • Prison Pen Pal

  • Creative Offerings