Community

"Thank you for giving me such a joyful and blissful space the week I was with you. I learnt and felt so much whilst at Croydon Hall and now I am focussing on keeping sight of the stillness within, that I experienced whilst on Community Experience."

P.P.

Meditation in the Marketplace

Croydon Hall is an experiment in living the Osho vision of ‘meditation in the marketplace’. The group of people who live here help to run the business and work together to maintain the house and its grounds. Life in the community is based on meditation and each person is on a personal development path. Meditation is the foundation of everything we do.

The ambience of meditation can be felt as one walks through the doors of Croydon Hall. It enhances the beauty and the silence that pervades the building and the grounds.

An International Community

The people in the community are international which makes for a unique communal experience. Living and working alongside people from so many countries is hugely interesting but sometimes challenging, as customs are different and many people are not native English speakers. However this highlights the uniqueness of meditation as, even though we may not speak the same verbal language, we do speak the same non-verbal language of meditation.

Our community at Croydon Hall runs the office, kitchen, housekeeping, garden and maintenance departments. We incorporate meditation into our daily work and personal life and as a result benefit from a very successful venue which is run in a peaceful, friendly and supportive way.

If you ask those of us who live here at Croydon Hall what the essence of life in a community is, the words you most often hear are ‘friendship’, ‘growth’, ‘part of a team’, ‘meditation’, ‘quality of life’, ‘mutual support’, ‘intimacy’, ‘sharing’ and even, paradoxically, ‘aloneness’.

Participation in the Community Experience

If you want to take part in this unique experiment, we offer different types of community experience programmes and are always open to people who would like to share this experience with us.

If you would like join one of our short term ‘Community Experience’ programmes or jump in with both feet (as many of us did!) and become a long-term community member then please get in touch.

The Programmes

The Full-time Community Experience (£99.00)

For visitors who want to experience living and meditating with us, the Community Experience programme is the ideal way to be here. This involves being part of the community, joining in the work (6 hours per day or 35 hours per week) and the life here. This programme is for people who will stay for a specific period - minimum 1 week/maximum 2 weeks - and just want to slot in and help in any capacity. The cost of this programme is from £99 per week including full board and dormitory accommodation.

The Part-time Community Experience (£149.00)

For those who want to be here and work fewer hours a week, to spend more time alone or to explore the surrounding countryside, we have a part-time Community Experience programme. People need to contribute only 20 hours a week and can have more leisure time for individual sessions or to explore the countryside and local places of interest. The cost of this programme is from £149 for a week including full board and dormitory accommodation. This too is for a minimum period of 1 week and a maximum period of 2 weeks.

The Community Apprenticeship Programme

For people who would like to go deeper into meditation and community life, we offer the Community Apprenticeship Programme: work in exchange for food and accommodation. This period can last for up to 3 months and is preceded by the Community Experience week.

If you would like to experience community life with an Osho flavour, then call
+44 (0) 1984 642200 or e-mail the office: info@croydonhall.co.uk.

All it takes is a little madness, or maybe courage, to face the joys and challenges of living and working closely with others and to do Osho’s meditations. The community at Croydon Hall is like a river - always flowing and changing. You can come a few times a year and each time you will always see new and different faces! So why not give it a try.

Testimonial for the Community Experience

"I was stressed out. I was working too hard. And I felt that I had no space to be with myself. I was really close to throwing my hands in the air and giving up. But instead, I picked up the phone and called Croydon Hall to come here for a week on the Community Experience Programme.

I had first come to this wonderful oasis in Somerset in summer 2001 as part of a retreat and had been struck by the beauty, space and energy here. So when I needed to ‘time out’ on my life for a while, Croydon Hall felt like the right place to go.

When I arrived here again I was feeling frayed at the edges, to say the least, and just a little nervous at coming back to a place where I had undergone such a major transformation, without the anonymity of being part of a group. It was also a big step to choose to spend a week with 14 people I basically didn’t know, and didn’t know how well I would relate to.

However, I soon discovered that the beauty of this place is not just in the countryside and buildings, but also in the community that keeps it all going. I was welcome from the moment I arrived and genuinely felt like a valued part of the community.

Under the programme, participants contribute a number of hours to the community over the course of their stay (this is a working community, after all!) and every effort is made to accommodate your preferred activity. Mine was gardening --although I had never done it before - and I soon felt my mind emptying and a blissful peacefulness come upon me as I dug, cut and edged. But just as I was given encouragement and support, I was also given space and this last week has left me so relaxed, I feel I could float away!

I chose to contribute 20 hours over the week and this left me plenty of time to take in the beautiful countryside, go for walks, to sit and read (there is an excellent library of Osho and other texts available), or just do nothing and simply be. I was also welcomed to all daily meditations and was able to try (for the first time) Dynamic, Kundalini and the Evening Meeting Meditation without feeling like a novice in a room full of experts. Every meal lived up to the excellent reputation that Croydon Hall has earned for the finest vegetarian food possible, and in the evenings I was able to connect with members of the community, share experiences, feelings and stories.

I feel that I have, in just a week, de-stressed, de-toxed myself physically and emotionally, truly been at one with nature and re-discovered a stillness deep down that I had almost lost sight of. And I feel I have made some new friends into the bargain as well.

I can’t really do justice to this experience here in this article. To anyone who wants to try something a bit different, and feel what it is like to be a part of this beautiful community, I say get on the phone right away and come! I’ll definitely be back!"

John Tobin