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About Satyana Calendar of Events Gender Reconciliation Leading with Spirit Spiritual Diplomacy Spiritual Principles Articles Poetry Links Contact Us |
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MISSION The Satyana Institute is a non-profit service and training organization. Our mission is to support individuals, communities, and organizations to combine inner work of the heart with outer service in the world. The name satyana comes from two sanskrit roots: sat, which means truth or being, and also refers to action aligned or suffused with spirit; and yana, which means vehicle. So "satyana" means a vehicle for action infused with the grace of spirit. Satyana Institute has three principal program areas: Gender Reconciliation, Leading with Spirit, and Spiritual Diplomacy. Gender Reconciliation synthesizes wisdom from world's spiritual traditions to foster new dimensions of healing and reconciliation between women and men. Both women and men are afflicted by gender injustice, and each needs the other for a true and complete healing. The process of gender reconciliation builds upon the important advances of the women's and men's movements, yet goes beyond them both in recognizing the gender crisis as a collective spiritual crisis. The premise of this work is that transforming relations between feminine and masculine dimensions of human society is fundamental to creating lasting, positive social change. Developed over the past 12 years by Satyana Institute and its precursors, over 40 events have been organized to bring women and men together to jointly confront gender injustice. These events have been held in the United States, South Africa, India, Croatia, and Australia. Satyana's gender reconciliation work is expanding in South Africa, where the new Constitution guarantees gender justice as a fundamental human right. In collaboration with the Deputy Minster of Health for South Africa, we are exploring avenues to strengthen the implementation of gender equity in the South African society. Satyana Institute has been invited to introduce its gender reconciliation program to a group of senior government officials and Members of Parliament in the autumn of 2005. Leading with Spirit is a program area committed to the integration of spiritual wisdom into leadership for social change. Growing numbers of professionals are aspiring to infuse their work with deeper inspiration and spiritual integrity. Working with leaders in diverse fields since 1996, Satyana Institute developed a set of thirteen Principles of Spiritual Activism that have been widely disseminated and applied in organizational settings. We offer workshops and training on a consulting basis to support organizations and individuals to apply these principles in their work. Spiritual Diplomacy is a new program area created to explore the role of spirituality and mysticism in the reconciliation of cross-cultural conflicts rooted in religious division. The premise underlying this exploration is that each of the great world religions was originally born out of profound mystical revelations that emanated from a single universal or divine source. This shared foundation constitutes a deep common ground or "interfaith mysticism" that unites the world's religions. A return to this unitive foundation could potentially play a significant role in healing divisive religious conflicts. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 
Will Keepin, Ph.D., President and Executive Director. Will co-founded the Satyana Institute in 1996, and has been developing its Gender Reconciliation work since the early 1990s. His training was originally in mathematical physics, and later in transpersonal psychology and eastern meditation disciplines. Will's professional background began in environmental science. He was research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) near Vienna, Austria where he became a whistleblower in a major international scientific research project that was biased to favor nuclear power. He published a full expose of this project, as resident scholar at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. He subsequently became Hewlett Fellow at Princeton University, then joined the Rocky Mountain Institute, and became consulting physicist to the Energy Foundation, whose founding documents he co-authored. Will's work on global warming and renewable energy influenced international environmental policy, and he presented testimony to the Parliaments of United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Australia, and the US House of Representatives.
Will has undergone intensive training in eastern spiritual traditions, and he began leading retreats in interfaith mysticism in India in 2003. He has facilitated many experiential workshops and taught graduate courses at the California Institute of Integral Studies and Holy Names College. He holds a PhD in applied mathematics, Master's degrees in East-West psychology and in physics, and he completed the three-year Grof Transpersonal Training.. Will is co-author of the forthcoming book, Revolution of Heart: The Collective Alchemy of Gender Reconciliation. Will has published over 30 articles and book chapters, and served as consulting editor for ReVision. He is profiled in the book The Cultural Creatives, by Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson (Harmony Books, 2000). PROGRAM DIRECTOR 
Cynthia Brix, M.Div, MA. is Program Director for Satyana Institute, and was formerly Administrative and Training Coordinator from 2001 to 2003. She is a candidate for the Unitarian Universalist (UU) ministry and has just completed service as the campus minister at the University of Colorado for the UU students.
A long-time student of Eknath Easwaran's Passage Meditation, Cynthia has led meditation workshops at regional and national Unitarian Universalist conferences. Fundamental to her ministry is a contemplative life of prayer that infuses her activism in social justice, gender healing, and racial harmony. Cynthia's focus at Satyana Institute is toward expanding the gender reconciliation program, and supporting an interfaith refuge project for battered women and children in India. She also co-chaired the Race Relations Committee for the City of Muncie, Indiana, and currently she is coordinating an interfaith, multi-ethnic program to help address racial tensions at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Cynthia earned a double master's degree in wellness management and applied gerontology from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. As co-founder of Lifecycle Consultants, a mother/daughter agency, she has organized a variety of educational seminars, individual wellness sessions, and creative family reunions. CONSULTANTS  Nomfundo Walaza, MA is the executive director of Desmond Tutu's Center in Cape Town, South
Africa. She is a clinical psychologist who has worked in the human rights field for 15 years. She served for 11 years as Executive Director of the Trauma Centre for Survivors of Violence and Torture in South Africa, where she focused on empowerment and healing for victims of trauma and violence, many of whom suffered severely at the hands of the Apartheid government. Nomfundo is passionate about women’s issues, and restoring the dignity of those who have suffered as a result of human rights violations and abuses. She is concerned about escalating violence toward the most vulnerable citizens including children, the elderly and disabled. “In order to help my country heal from the legacy of segregation and discrimination, I believe it is critical to address racism, sexism, and homophobia and their impact on the lives of South Africans today.”
Honoring former personnel at Satyana Institute Satyana Institute was co-founded by Will Keepin and Jed Swift in 1996. Early initiatives included leadership development for social change professionals, training programs in ecopsychology, and intensive workshops in gender reconciliation. Jed gave tirelessly of his time and energy to lay the foundations of the institute on both programmatic and administrative levels. He founded the Earth in Mind training program in the nascent field of ecopsychology. In 1999 Jed moved to Naropa University where he continues his creative work in ecopsychology. Molly Dwyer joined the Institute as Program Director in 1999 and later became Vice-President. Molly made vital contributions in many arenas of Satyana's work, most notably in the gender reconciliation project. Her brilliant work on the emergent feminine and cosmology of gender has been widely recognized, and she won an award for this work from the International Society for the Systems Sciences. Molly moved on from the Institute in 2003 to focus on creative writing, and she continues as a consultant on specific projects. Judith Sumner served as Administrative Coordinator from 1999 to 2001, and brought her tremendous administrative acumen to developing the major administrative structures of the institute. She now serves in the administration of Naropa University. Many others have contributed to the work of Satyana Institute in innumerable ways. Our deep thanks go out to each of them. Gratitude to our Financial Supporters Satyana Institute was founded with a grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, which was renewed over a three year period. This start up funding was central to the creation of the Institute. Satyana Institute acknowledges with gratitude the following organizations for their past or present financial support:
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Linda Cunningham Co-Founder, Heller-Cunningham, Inc. Seth Henry Legal Counsel Will Keepin Satyana Institute Ravi Ravindra Dalhouise University Jed Swift Naropa University Former Board Chair: Frances M. (Kelley) Green Southern Poverty Law Center [deceased August 20, 2003] 
GUEST FACULTY Guest faculty in our trainings and programs are drawn from pioneering leaders in several fields whose work is directly relevant to the mission of the Satyana Institute. Guest faculty in past events have included:
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Karambu L. Ringera, PhD is the founder and President of International Peace Initiatives (IPI), an
organization that supports grassroots organizations and leaders throughout Africa. IPI programs
include the AIDS Orphans Education Fund and the Women's International Grassroots Peace
Congresses. A native of Kenya, Karambu recently completed her Ph.D. in International
Communications at the University of Denver. She holds two Masters degrees from Natal University in