Cultivating Women’s Spiritual Mastery Conference 2009

~Turin, Italy

Who are the women spiritual masters of our time?

How can they inspire women seekers and emerging female spiritual leaders to fulfill their own divine destinies?

How can women on different spiritual paths support each other to overcome the challenges faced by all women on the spiritual journey?

Although spiritual consciousness ultimately transcends gender altogether, women face unique challenges and obstacles in virtually every spiritual and religious tradition. As the ‘divine feminine’ is awakening across the globe, there is a need for women from diverse spiritual paths to join together and explore avenues for mutual support, mentoring, blessing, and empowerment.

The conference organizers invited three guest teachers – Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, Sister Lucy Kurien, and Swami Ambikananda Saraswati – who we believe are spiritual masters in their own right. Each has forged a unique spiritual path, true to her heart’s calling, against formidable odds within her respective faith tradition. All three have directly confronted patriarchal injustice with love and truth, and surmounted major obstacles to achieve profound missions that would never have manifested, had they merely followed traditional religious and spiritual protocols for women.

Featured Presenters ~ Guest Teachers

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo was raised in London and became a Buddhist while still in her teens. At the age of twenty she traveled to India, becoming one of the first Westerners to be ordained as a Buddhist nun. The international bestseller Cave in the Snow chronicles her twelve years of seclusion in a remote cave. Deeply concerned with the plight of Buddhist nuns, she established Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in India. In 2008 His Holiness the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa, head of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage, gave her the rare title of Jetsunma (Venerable Master) in recognition of her spiritual achievements as a nun and her efforts in promoting the status of female practitioners in Tibetan Buddhism. Tenzin Palmo spends most of the year at Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery and occasionally tours to give teachings and raise funds for the ongoing needs of the DGL nuns and Nunnery.

Sister Lucy Kurien, Catholic nun, founder, Maher project, Pune, India Sr Lucy is founder of Maher, an interfaith and caste-free organization that provides shelter and care to destitute and battered women and children, in Maharashtra, India. Currently, Maher has 24 homes in central and southern India, where nearly 600 children and more than 180 women are residents. While a devoted Catholic Christian, Sister Lucy has an unshakable faith in confluence of religions of the world in attaining human well-being. She established Maher as an inter-faith organization which seeks the help and blessing of all religions and faiths in its work for the weak and poor around.

Swami Ambikananda Saraswati is a Hindu sannyasin, and founder of the Traditional Yoga Association in the UK, She also founded the MUKTI project to raise funds for two orphanages in India, and the Anahata Touch Healing system. She left South Africa during the Apartheid regime and settled in England and India, where she continued to pursue her spiritual path while raising her children. Her guru Swami Venkatesananda was a renowned Sanskrit scholar and Vedic authority who encouraged her to study Sanskrit and deepen her understanding of the Vedas and philosophical schools of India. After his death she was initiated into the sannyasin order by Swami Chidananda Maharaj, widely known as “The Sage of the Himalayas.” She is Chaplain of the Hindu Temple in Reading, England. Her books include translations of the Katha Upanishadand the Uddhava Gita, as well as Healing Yoga, Principles of Breathwork and Age with Spirit. Weblinks: www.traditionalyoga.organd www.mukti.traditionalyoga.org.