Arjuna Ardagh

Arjuna Ardagh was educated in England, at the King's School Canterbury, and later at Cambridge University, where he earned a Master’s degree in literature. Since the age of 14 he has had a passionate interest in spiritual awakening, and began to practice meditation and yoga at that time. In his late teens he trained as a meditation teacher. After graduating from Cambridge, he devoted himself more fully to the call he felt inside him, and studied with a number of the world’s greatest spiritual teachers, in India, Europe and the US. In 1987 he founded the Alchemy Institute in Seattle WA. In 1991, after returning to India for a prolonged period of meditation, Arjuna met H.W.L. Poonja, a direct student of the celebrated sage Ramana Maharshi. With Poonja’s help, Ardagh went through a radical shift of perspective. Rather than attaining what he had imagined, he had the profound realization that what he had been seeking for what he already was, and always had been. He realized that it was in the abandonment of all seeking and wanting that the heart found its fulfillment.  What remains is a limitless presence, perfectly at peace and missing nothing. In 1992 Poonja asked Ardagh to return to the West to “share this secret with his friends.”  He returned to Seattle and began to work with people one-on-one and in groups, facilitating a dramatic shift in awareness with thousands of people throughout the United States and Europe. He quickly discovered that this same realization was easily accessible to anyone who was willing to look in the right place, and that this had a profound effect on simple day-to-day life. He has been traveling, both in the U.S. and Europe, since that time, facilitating this kind of shift, and supporting people in the art of living life from this recognition. He has experienced that the shift is becoming progressively easier for ordinary people, with no formal preparation, and he has since met with many other teachers and writers who have come to the same discovery. Ardagh’s first book, Relaxing into Clear Seeing was published in 1997, and won him critical acclaim from many of today’s most eminent authorities on the transformation of consciousness. It was followed in 1999 by How about Now?, and in 2003 by a novel, The Last Laugh. The Translucent Revolution, published in 2005 by New World Library, was a national bestseller, was featured in O Magazine as well as on radio, TV and print media.  It has been translated into 11 languages. This book is based on 170 in-depth interviews with authorities on individual and collective awakening: people like Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie and Lynn Twist.  Awakening into Oneness was published in 2007 by Sounds True, a book about the Oneness University in India. Ardagh’s latest book Leap Before You Look came out in April 2008 and includes 72 short-cuts for getting out of the mind and into the present moment.  Ardagh is also featured in many audio and video products, most notably a 6 CD series from Sounds True titled Let Yourself Go. As well as working with people as an awakening coach, Ardagh trains people to become awakening coaches, and to work with individuals as well as in business, in prisons, churches and in social and humanitarian projects. The Living Essence Training offers a complete training in the six foundational skills necessary to be an awakening coach.  Ardagh is the founding director of the Living Essence Foundation, in Nevada City, CA, which offers seminars, training programs and courses all over the world. Ardagh speaks at many international conferences, and has appeared on TV, on the radio and in print media in twelve countries. He is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council.  Together with his Norwegian wife, Chameli Ardagh, they teaches the Deeper Love seminars throughout the U.S. and Europe, to support both couples and singles to transform intimate relationship into an embodiment of the heart’s deepest longing and knowing. The Ardaghs live in Nevada City, CA, with their two sons.