Questions people ask

No. Ekatva draws on a very old Indian philosophical tradition, and on contemplative practices from several traditions, but no faith is required and nothing is asked of anyone's beliefs. Nobody will be asked to pray, convert, or accept a doctrine.

The programme deliberately puts a scripture scholar, a neuroscientist and a physicist/philosopher of mind on the same stage — partly so that no single tradition gets the final word.

None at all. No background in philosophy, science or meditation is required. The only real requirement is curiosity, and a willingness to sit with a few open questions rather than needing them resolved right away.

Everything is explained in plain language. Sessions are described in ordinary words — “what ‘not two’ really means,” “listening to the body” — rather than in academic or Sanskrit-heavy terms, and any Sanskrit or Hindi word used is explained when it comes up.

No — and scepticism is genuinely welcome. The programme is built to hold the questions open rather than to close them, and one of its panels exists specifically to mark where popular claims go further than the evidence allows.

For instance, some popular writing draws a direct equivalence between quantum physics and non-dual metaphysics. Serious physicists and philosophers of mind are divided on how much weight that analogy can bear, and at least one recent attempt to formalise “universal consciousness” as a physical field has already been retracted from the literature. That question is hosted as a live, contested one rather than as settled science.

No. The claim is not that the world is an illusion. It is narrower than that: what is questioned is the world's claim to independent, separate existence — not its existence.

The usual image is the wave and the ocean. The wave is real; its shape and movement are real. It simply is not a separate thing from the water it is made of.

It can be, and the programme treats that risk seriously. The difference is between saying it and noticing it: an afternoon of argument about connectedness changes very little on its own.

That is why every idea in the programme is followed by an experience of it, why silence is programmed into the agenda by name rather than left over as a gap, and why the day end in small circles rather than on a stage.

You can, and it will help you understand the idea. It will not give you the taste of the mango.

The reason is mechanical as much as spiritual: our minds are wired to notice differences and draw boundaries — that is how we function day to day. So the sense of oneness has to be felt directly, even briefly, rather than only explained. This programme is built around giving you a few genuine chances to feel it.

The morning is understanding. Honest, plain-spoken conversation that builds the case with the mind: what “not two” really means, what science is discovering about meditation and the mind, where modern physics and this old idea genuinely overlap, and what happens when language reaches its limit. It closes with time spent quietly under the open sky.

The afternoon is feeling it. Led by the body and the hands rather than by argument: making something together (drawing, sound or movement, no skill required), a practice for listening to the body, a guided exercise in compassion or truly listening to another person, a conversation with someone who has brought this way of seeing into their work — and a close in small circles.

You can see the full timetable on the one-day programme.

Roughly half and half, and the order matters: the argument comes first so that the practice has something to land on.

Every idea is followed by an experience of it — the neuroscience-of-flow talk is followed by guided making, not by a Q&A. There are also 45–60 minute blocks of stillness, movement and practice, and silent time built in deliberately rather than treated as the leftover gaps between sessions.

No. There is no confessional element, and nothing personal will be asked of you in front of the room.

You can opt out of any session. The pair exercises are guided and voluntary, and the small circles on day two ask only for one thing you might try in your own life over the coming month — you can say as little as you like.

Less than you might fear. On day one there is one guided silent sit of about 45 minutes, followed by tea taken quietly together — no teaching, no debrief — and an evening outdoors without facilitation.

You do not need to have meditated before. The sits are guided, and sitting on a chair is fine. If a block of silence is not working for you, stepping out quietly is acceptable.

Yes — it is a single day, designed as one movement, and everyone attends it together. There are no parallel sessions to choose between, so the whole group shares the same experience to talk about afterwards.

The same single-track principle applies to the longer editions — the five days at The Mirage in Andretta, and the five-day form under discussion with Banjara Experiences.

The pilot is the concentrated form: argument in the morning, experience in the afternoon, around twenty to twenty-five people in Goa.

The five-day edition at The Mirage in Andretta, Himachal Pradesh, is slower and smaller — twenty guests at a heritage homestay in an artists' village, arranged as Arrive, Understand, Wonder, Make, Love & close. That edition is under discussion with the venue and is subject to confirmation. You can read the five-day working draft.

A third arrangement, with Banjara Experiences, a Himalayan travel company, would run in both forms at one of their retreats. It is at present a verbal understanding only — venue, dates and numbers to be confirmed.

That is possible, and we would rather say so than oversell it. Glimpses of this are brief and cannot be guaranteed on demand by anyone.

What the programme can promise is the conditions: a small group, a clear sequence, silence that is protected, and plenty of chances. Nobody will be asked to report a feeling or to perform an insight afterwards.

Yes — most people will. The welcome circle and the small groups are designed so that arriving alone is a normal way to arrive, not a disadvantage.

A pilot edition is planned as a single day in Goa, in November 2026 — exact dates to be confirmed.

The five-day edition is planned for The Mirage, Andretta, in the Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh, and is still under discussion with the venue — dates to be confirmed.

A third arrangement, with Banjara Experiences in the Himalaya, would carry both a one-day and a five-day edition. Nothing is signed yet — venue, dates and numbers to be confirmed.

The Goa pilot is a small group — currently planned at around twenty to twenty-five people — so that conversations stay personal and the small groups at the close of the day feel genuinely intimate. The small circles are eight to ten people.

The Andretta edition is twenty, matching a full buyout of the property.

Numbers for the Banjara arrangement are not settled, and will depend on which of their retreats it runs at.

To be announced — the contribution will be published with the confirmed dates, along with what it includes.

A limited number of subsidised places will be available for students and practitioners. Nothing is charged now: registering your interest costs nothing and commits you to nothing.

For the Goa pilot, suggested accommodation close to the venue and airport transfers will be published with the dates.

For Andretta, accommodation is part of the edition itself — ten double bedrooms across the property's three cottages. The nearest airport is Dharamshala (Gaggal), about 1.5 hours by taxi, and the nearest fast train is Amb Andaura (the Vande Bharat from Delhi or Chandigarh), about 3 hours onward by taxi. A shared group transfer is worth arranging at those distances.

Comfortable clothes you can sit and move in, and a cushion or shawl if you like your own. For Andretta, bring layers and shoes you can walk a hill path in.

Beyond that: nothing except a willingness to stay with a question a little longer than feels natural, rather than rushing to resolve it.

English, with Sanskrit and Hindi terms used freely and explained as they come up. No prior familiarity with any of the vocabulary is assumed.

Menus and dietary needs can be passed to the venue in advance; at Andretta, meals are home-cooked, vegetarian and served family-style, with a traditional Himachali dhaam meal available on request.

On accessibility we would rather be precise than reassuring: the Goa venue is not yet fixed, and the Andretta cottages are restored traditional Himachali buildings. Tell us what you need when you register, and you will get a straight answer about that specific property rather than a general promise.

To be published once dates are confirmed — along with the contribution. Nothing is being collected or committed at this stage.

Quietly, and without a final speech. Day two closes in small groups of eight to ten, where each person names one specific place in their own life — a relationship, a decision, a piece of land — where they will act over the coming month as if the separation were less total than it appears. Then music, or silence.

There is deliberately no closing keynote, because this is not something meant to be neatly concluded.

Ekatva is intended as a platform for consciousness studies rather than a single event: programmes and collaborations that bring experts from different disciplines into the same room as people who have real decisions to make.

Three arrangements are being developed: the one-day pilot in Goa, the five days at The Mirage in Andretta, and — still only a verbal understanding — a one-day and a five-day edition with Banjara Experiences in the Himalaya.

To be confirmed. Our intention is that the contemplative parts of the programme stay unrecorded, and that anyone who does not want to appear in photographs can say so at registration. A clear policy will be published before the first edition.

Register your interest with your question in the message box, and we will answer it directly. There is also a fuller account of the thinking behind the gathering on the Ekatva overview and the four doors.