Jnana yoga is the path of direct knowing: the way to freedom that works not by adding anything to you but by letting go of a wrong idea about what you are. Jnana is the Sanskrit word for wisdom, and it does not mean information. Sri Ramana Maharshi, who lived at the foot of the mountain Arunachala in southern India until 1950, is one of its clearest modern voices. Cave of the Heart Retreats draws inspiration from Sri Ramana Maharshi on our silent retreats at Karuna Retreat Ce

Self-Inquiry is much more than a meditation practice. It is the very quest to find the Truth of our own being, which implies a profound change in our attitude and in the direction of our attention. In Self-Inquiry meditation, the attention turns back on itself and looks for the one who is aware. Instead of attending to the breath, or to sensation, or to a mantra, we follow the simple sense of being back to its source, held in the question "Who am I?". Cave of the Heart Retrea

A mindfulness retreat usually means one of two things: a residential course in the secular, clinically studied kind of mindfulness that came out of MBSR, or a Buddhist retreat teaching sati, the quality of attention. Cave of the Heart Retreats runs neither. We mainly run Hridaya silent meditation retreats at Karuna Retreat Center in Monchique, in the Algarve, Portugal. We have never called them mindfulness retreats, and the word appears nowhere else on this website. What peop

A silent retreat is a period of days spent in shared silence and structured meditation, with speech, phones and reading set aside, so that attention can turn inward. No previous meditation experience is needed to attend one. At Cave of the Heart Retreats we hold 3-day, 5-day and 10-day Hridaya silent meditation retreats at Karuna Retreat Center in Monchique, in the Algarve, Portugal, and beginners are welcome at every one of them. This guide is not written to reassure you. It

A silent meditation retreat is a period of shared noble silence and structured meditation practice, usually lasting several days, in which speech, phones, and ordinary social habits are set aside so that we can honour a deeper dimension of our being. At Cave of the Heart Retreats, guided by Ricky, Juliana and other retreat leaders, we hold 3-day, 5-day, and 10-day Hridaya Silent Meditation Retreats at Karuna Retreat Center in the Algarve, Portugal. If you are reading this bef

Noble silence, or Mauna, is more than not talking. The four levels of silence in the yogic tradition, why retreats set aside phones and eye contact, and what is always still possible to do.