Mission statement (draft, still under consideration)

To serve humanity as a spiritual study and retreat centre, inviting people to come to work on the process of human regeneration through self-transformation. 

A season of preparations

After the intensive program of last season several of our workers enjoyed a good rest, preparing for the things to come. We have an interesting program ahead of us! 

Lotus House nearly completed

At the time of writing this Centre News the new building Lotus House will be reaching its completion. It has certainly become a beautiful, future proof and well-built house. The green roof covered with plants is highly appreciated. A small team has been involved in preparing furnishing the rooms. Unfortunately, it appeared that we could use less material from the former Arundale House than expected. All matrasses for instance had an unpleasant and damp smell of the former building. So, we had to buy new ones. We expect Lotus House to be ready for use in the second half of October. After this, the cloister will finally receive its much-needed renovation. 

Fundraising for Lotus House; we are asking for your help

As mentioned above, Lotus House is nearly ready now:  beautiful, well insulated and with modern technology to reduce the use of energy. Unfortunately we have experienced several setbacks, not only in the building process, but also financially. As we do not wish to ask our guests for still higher tariffs per room than calculated, it is with great reluctance that we are now asking for your financial support: we would be very grateful to receive your donations (see the numbers of the bank account below). Thank you very much!
 

Work in the gardens: ‘Let us make an altar’

As mentioned before, for a few years a very loyal and enthusiastic team comes together each second Saturday of the month to work in the gardens. This autumn we planted many new plants, which came from the garden of one of our workers. We intend to use specific plants attracting bees, thus enriching life at the centre. The Buddha statue in the meditation garden received a new place.

  

Fortunately, one of our team members has a Buddhist background, so we learned that the Buddha should look eastwards. We found a good place and prepared it well. Then the project ‘let us make an altar’ started for the Buddha statue. After that, the environment of the beautiful Tara statue got a face lift as well. In case you are interested to join please contact by email arend.heijbroek@kpnmail.nl

Tara statue consecrated

A few weeks earlier the Tara statue had been consecrated by two priests of the Liberal Catholic Church. Quite remarkable: a statue from the Buddhist/ Hindu tradition being consecrated through a catholic ceremony, together with amongst others our friends of the Sangha Metta retreat group. Very typical for the work at the ITC. On the inner level man made religions/creeds lose their relevance. The beautiful Tara statue was made on the Indonesian island of Bali and has the same style as the Borobudur from Java. For information on Tara and this statue please look at http://www.itc-naarden.org/blog/?m=201311

Work in the Garden of Remembrance (GOR)

After intensive and elaborate deliberations and profound research the Executive Committee has been able to make some clear decisions: this autumn the old trees will be removed, and new smaller trees will be placed on the same spot. This is part of a complete renovation of the GOR. The advice of Kurt Leland gave us confidence that we are on the right track, enabling to make some additional improvements, fully respecting the finer energies at this beautiful garden.

Programs on the Powers Latent in Humanity

The programs of the three Dutch study days, with the title Latent human powers (Latente vermogens in de mens) really seem to be very attractive. The whole program will cover two years, and had a kick off last June with the lecture Sacred Places by Kurt Leland (shortly visible on Youtube on our website). An international symposium will follow in June 2020, a seminar with Trân-Thi-Kim-Diêu, and four Dutch study days in 2020/2021. The program will be concluded with an international seminar with Kurt Leland. The leaflet for the Dutch program can be downloaded from 
http://www.theosofie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Latente_vermogens_in_de_mens_-2019_2020.pdf

ITC Friends Day on 11 January at Lotus House

It has been some time ago since we met with our loyal and dedicated friends of the ITC to exchange plans and ideas. Now that several projects will be completed soon, and new plans are emerging, it seems to be a good moment to meet again! Moreover, this will be an ideal opportunity to take a closer look at the new Lotus House, our meeting place during that day. An important element of the program will be an introduction by Parcival van Gessel on the experiences we had last summer with Kurt Leland, investigating the finer energies at the centre. The discussion will be in Dutch. Please note this date; we will start at 13.00 hour. 

A few more pictures: work at the gardens

Important dates for your diary

Projects you might wish to support financially

Lotus House: for European donations use the IBAN account-number NL42 ABNA 0475 4536 46 or Stichting St. Michael, BIC/SWIFT code ABNANL2A.

Olcott Fund: a small fund for travel expenses of lecturers, and scholarships for participants during ITC seminars. Donations payable to St. Michael's Foundation (see footer) mentioning Olcott Fund.

General information: For payments outside Europe you are advised to make 'payments with shared costs'. This means that both parties share relatively low domestic costs. Within Europe be sure, whenever possible, to use a SEPA conform transfer, using IBAN and BIC (SWIFT), without any transaction costs. 

(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area SEPA)