About Peter Bampton

I was born in 1965 and grew up mostly in north Hertfordshire in England. I was raised a Catholic but rejected it when I was old enough to assert my adolescent independence at age fourteen. Thereafter instead of attending church on Sundays I began taking long countryside walks during which I’d sit down and be engulfed by a transcendent Peace and Presence that burned with a captivating intensity. Although I had no real understanding of what this Presence was I later found a way to describe it as a Great Silent Fire. I intuitively trusted that Great Silent Fire and it’s been my guiding light ever since.

After studying English Literature in London, and inspired by an overwhelming curiosity about the world and a deep longing for spiritual freedom welling up from that Great Silent Fire, I spent many years traveling in USA, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Nepal and India. While in Thailand I participated in a 10 day meditation retreat in the Theravada Buddhist Forest Tradition where I experienced a radical and ecstatic Awakening to what I later understood to be the non-dual nature of Reality. This Awakening left a profound imprint and the trajectory of my life rapidly became purposed toward the rediscovery and deepening of that Revelation. Over the ensuing years of being an avid practitioner of Buddhist meditation and dharma, I did many silent meditation retreats in Theravadin monasteries and almost got to the point of ordaining as a Buddhist monk.

At age twenty seven my trajectory abruptly shifted from being drawn toward a practice-oriented, traditional monastic path when I read the Advaita Vedanta classic I Am That by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, which transmitted the searing immediacy of Liberation here and now. Newly attuned to this radical intuition, I soon met a fiery young American teacher, Andrew Cohen, in London and became involved for the following thirteen years in a radical and controversial spiritual community based primarily in the USA. I’m profoundly grateful for all I learned during that oftentimes ecstatic and sometimes agonising adventure, both the light and shadow. In 2005 at age forty, on the heels of having undergone a profound transformation, I left this community as it became increasingly clear that Cohen’s modus operandi as teacher, although sincere, was often misguided in its heavy-handedness and could no longer serve the deepening of my own Awakening Process. I also increasingly felt that Cohen’s teaching of “evolutionary enlightenment”, although penetrating in its oftentimes piercing clarity and radical passion, was distorted by unexamined western cultural and scientific “grand narrative” presumptions.

In 2007, after two years essentially “on retreat” on the island of Ibiza, Spain, while living on a secluded permaculture farm, I and my new partner Cynthia, entered into a profound alchemy of consciousness and creativity that led to a shared vision to manifest a beacon for the evolution of consciousness and culture in harmony with the ecological web of life. This passion led us to purchase the abandoned hamlet of Quinta da Mizarela in the mountains of Central Portugal. Living in a yurt we began the adventure of co-founding and developing what we came to call The Awakened Life Project.

After a few years I began teaching meditation retreats and, as I received invitations, I also began to give public talks and courses in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra. As participants grew and many wanted to continue the adventure of Awakening together, I gradually found myself in the role of spiritual guide, along with Cynthia, to a growing international network of students that we eventually named The Awakened Life Sangha. In 2022 the Sangha has over 70 committed members from several nationalities.

In 2009 I founded the Men’s Collective with a small pilot group. While I’d had some previous experience of the power and potential of a deep spiritual brotherhood, I soon found myself and the Collective developing in new and thrilling ways as we entered into unprecedented territory, especially on extended retreats.

As well as guiding the Men’s Collective, I teach occasional retreats and courses that catalyse Awakening to the radical immediacy of the Spiritual Heart and facilitate the transformational task of embodying that Realisation in everyday life.

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In the winter of 2016-17 I embarked on a spiritual pilgrimage in India and experienced a profound deepening through the Grace of Ramana Maharshi, while meditating in Virupaksha cave on Arunachala Mountain, where he had lived in silence for many years.

Since 2015 my most potent Influence and Guiding Light has been a profound and ever-deepening Recognition-Response of the comprehensive, full-spectrum Teaching, Realisation and Divine Grace of Adi Da Samraj, whom I now regard as Master. The undeniable transmission and depth of Adi Da’s Divine Person and Teaching has had a transformative impact in ways I could never have imagined possible, not only on myself and also on the wider body of the Awakened Life Sangha.

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A great lover of Portugal and the Portuguese, I founded the initiative Evolusa, as a vehicle for illuminating the underappreciated strengths and potentials in the Portuguese character. It’s my conviction that the Portuguese carry in their collective “Soul” an uncorrupted purity of heart, and receptivity to spiritual reality and the essential universality of the human family, that is unique in the occidental world. My vision for Evolusa is that it’ll be a potent catalyst and a vibrant, dynamic hub for a new “Age of Discovery” amongst awakening Portuguese. I’m currently writing my second book In Search of the Portuguese Soul – Em Busca da Alma Portuguesa – which includes my adventures touring the country by bicycle. You can follow my journeys and writings on my blog here.

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My other interests include playing guitar, especially with our Sangha band The Free Radicals, practicing qigong, cycling the roads of Portugal, exploring and exposing the lies we have been told about just about everything, and a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

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