Welcome to the Leela School

About the Leela School of Awakening

We are committed to the whole world waking up from the personal trance of suffering. That is our overview and our purpose. We can make a difference one heart and one mind at a time.

Our training is heart-based, so whether you are interested in certification or not, you may find immense personal value in the insights into your true nature and the nature of suffering that these courses reveal.

Become a Certified Leela Therapist - Being a True Friend

Our model for a therapist is called a True Friend: someone with a quiet mind, an open heart, and the skillful means for therapeutic intervention. Through exercises and practice, you will be able to be a true friend in both your personal and professional life.

Skillful Means for Working as a Coach, Guide, Healer, Therapist, and True Friend

The skills we offer are broad, and cover several different modalities, which together form a coherent, effective and powerful medium for therapeutic intervention.  Based on over thirty years of a life's work, we pass on these skills to spread the possibility for true happiness in this moment.

Skillful means requires insight into your client's presenting conditions.  You will have the means to know which intervention is appropriate, and the flexibility to generate your own unique interventions. Advanced certification is available for those seeking to go deeper.

Preparing You to Work

The skills we offer at The Leela School are for your own awakening and skillful living in the world, while also offering the possibility to be certified as a therapist to work with clients on a range of presenting issues.  You will be prepared for working with clients who want to stop smoking or other addictions, as well as with clients who want to be more conscious in their lives.  You will find your own area of specialization, and a way to creatively serve.  The Leela School of Awakening supports world peace and freedom through universal self-realization.  If your heart calls you, you are welcome here.

The Desire for Happiness

By Leigh Estok | February 18, 2021

“Your true nature is happiness and bliss” – Ramana Maharshi   Everyone wants to be happy. This is a universal component of the human condition, and may seem so self-evident that it does not bear noting. Even those who intensely hate themselves or do violence to others can trace the drive back to the deepest … Read more

Five Traps to Avoid in the Pursuit of Happiness

By Leigh Estok | February 5, 2021

Conscious Connection Magazine, June 17, 2018 Our Declaration of Independence states that we are all created equal and enjoy the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The sad joke here is that the “pursuit of happiness” almost never leads to lasting happiness, whether for George Washington or anyone else. Before we examine … Read more

Supreme Yoga of Non-Ado

By Leigh Estok | January 20, 2021

Lucknow, India • Originally created March, 2013 Yoga is the cessation of the turning of thought. When thought ceases spirit stands in its true identity as observer of the world. Patanjali   Ultimately, if you are a sincere yogi interested in liberation, or a meditator trying to reach enlightenment, you have to finally graduate to … Read more

How Far Have We Gone

By Joey Bloom | August 27, 2019

Reading the latest edition of Eli Jaxon-Bear´s classic Enneagram book “Fixation to Freedom,” these words caught my attention: “We are all struggling, but how far have we gone?” – Kabir. How far have I gone? That is the essential question! That is what makes a difference in my life, and in the lives of those … Read more

Spiritual Retreats

By Joey Bloom | May 15, 2019

Before I discovered the Leela School, I was searching for a final teacher. I came across Gangaji; an American-born woman who transmitted the simple truth of who I am. Coming out of a school of mysticism which was very flashy and entertaining, at first I found Gangaji’s message to be too simple. After attending a … Read more