Desert Dharma
Working with Dharma is working with the truth of who you are. Discovering your own fundamental goodness, discovering your natural wisdom, and discovering the importance of being compassionate.
Desert Dharma is a series of workshops that are delivered in the Western Sahara Desert, Siwa Oasis, Egypt. The faculty are cutting edge experts in their field and all programmes are delivered in the greater good philosophy, which is a blend of ancient wisdom and modern science. This is a bio-psychosocial model that considers the organism as a whole, with the body in mind to create optimal and radical development and evolution.
“…but the real breakthrough came during the week that I spent in Siwa Oasis.”
Testimonial from T.V, Financial Director
Working in the desert has a wonderful way of keeping you in the present. It takes you away from your everyday environment, and the roles that you play which allows you to connect with other parts of yourself. The process allows you to be more present and will accelerate your awareness and connect you to nature and to yourself on a deeper level. The incredible sunrise and sunset’s, the great sand sea, the mingling array of stars at night, the endless space for contemplation, will all contribute to you finding more of yourself and enable greater thinking, feelings, and experience to emerge.
Clarity and understanding are enhanced by this environment which encourages a losing of your mind and a coming to your senses. Spending time in nature can act as a balm for our busy brains. Both correlational and experimental research have shown that interacting with nature has cognitive benefits, but it also has emotional and existential benefits that go beyond just being able to solve immediate issues and tensions.
Siwa Oasis History
Although the oasis is known to have been settled since at least the 10th Millennium BC, the earliest evidence of any connection with Ancient Egypt is the 26th Dynasty, when a necropolis was established. Ancient Greek settlers at Cyrene, made contact with the oasis around the same time (7th century BC), and the oracle temple of Amun.
(Greek: Zeus Ammon), who, Herodotus was told, took the image of a ram. Herodotus knew of a “fountain of the Sun” that ran coldest in the noontime heat. During his campaign to conquer the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great reached the oasis, supposedly by following birds across the desert. The oracle, Alexander’s court historians alleged, confirmed him as both a divine personage and the legitimate Pharaoh of Egypt, though Alexander’s motives in making the excursion, following his founding of Alexandria, remain to some extent inscrutable and contested.
Development in a Depression
The Siwa Oasis is an urban oasis in Egypt between the Qattara depression and the great sand sea in the western Sahara Desert 50 km (30 mi) east of the Libyan border and 560 km (348 mi) from Cairo. About 80 km (50 mi) in length and 20 km (12 mi) wide, Siwa Oasis is one of Egypt’s most isolated settlements with about 33,000 people, mostly Berbers who developed a unique and isolated desert culture and a language called Siwi; they are also fluent in the Egyptian dialect of Arabic which is called “Masry” meaning Egyptian.
Its fame derives primarily from its ancient role as the home to an oracle of Ammon the ruins of which are a popular tourist attraction. The Siwa oasis is in a deep depression that reaches below sea level, to about −19 metres (−62 ft).
