Aspire reaches the people of Carmel-by-the-Sea from a small P.O. Box on the Monterey Peninsula, but its community stretches far beyond the Pacific shore. For more than four decades this non-denominational teaching ministry has offered a single, focused message: meditation is a way of life, and the breath of spirit is open to anyone willing to do the work. The Saturday morning Zoom Discourse, the workshops along the California coast, the weekly Satsang radio program, the Emmy-winning television archive on YouTube, and the bedside hospice calls are all expressions of the same teaching: the slow, daily practice of waking up.
The ministry is led by Gregory Penn, who teaches under his given spiritual name Swami Chaitanya Siraj, Lamp of Consciousness. The Aspire library of teachings - meditations, discourses, commentaries, podcasts, and more than 145 television programs filmed over twenty-five years - is held together by his voice, his Zen humor, and a steady insistence that transformation has to be lived, not merely believed.
A Name That Means Breath
The word Aspire, Siraj explains, means "breath of spirit," and that is what is at the heart of the work. "Aspire is not a religious movement," he writes. "It is an opportunity to reunite you with the BREATH OF YOUR SPIRIT." No creed or religious body governs what is offered. The practice is rooted in meditation and mental disciplines that "restore one's inner attentions to the spirit of Life itself." The teaching draws from Tibetan Pulsing, Zen, Vipassana, the Gnostic Gospels, Sufism, the Tao, and the contemplative side of Christianity, but it does not belong to any of them.
Siraj teaches that most people cannot simply sit down and begin to meditate, because the unconscious mind holds deep fear and anger. The path begins with what he calls Energy Momentum One, a Tibetan Pulsing meditation that uses breath patterns to bring hidden material up and out of the system. From there, students add Heart Vipassana, the Beloved Meditation, walking practice, Zazen, and a daily Forgiveness meditation. The refrain is simple: meditation is not a skill to be mastered, it is an awareness that already lives within you, and you will find it with your Heart, not your head.
The Teacher: Gregory Penn, Swami Chaitanya Siraj
Gregory E. Penn, DD, began his spiritual path in childhood and followed it from San Diego State University into Unity seminary, where he was ordained a Unity minister at the age of 21 in 1973. A series of events then drew him to India, where he lived for about five years in a beautiful ashram and sat at the feet of some of the great teachers of the twentieth century: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Baba Muktananda, Sathya Sai Baba, and Jiddu Krishnamurti. Rajneesh gave him the name Swami Chaitanya Siraj, Lamp of Consciousness, as a blessing to become an authentic spiritual teacher. He returned to the United States, continued his studies in Gnosticism, Sufism, Buddhism, and Taoism, and earned a doctorate from Golden State University in 1989.
For more than forty years now, Gregory has offered counseling, authored books and a monthly newsletter, and produced an ongoing body of television and radio work. He keeps no payment from Aspire. The only staff the organization maintains are a webmaster, a bookkeeper, and a CPA. He makes weekly hospital visits and daily hospice calls on the Monterey Peninsula, and his teaching schedule - radio, podcasts, weekly discourses, monthly commentaries, three retreats a year - is the backbone of Aspire's outreach.
"I love Buddha, but I could never be a Buddhist," he writes. "I love Jesus, but I can not be a Christian. I am absorbed by the Tao, but I could not say I am a Taoist. What I offer is a direct path to have what is called a Satori, which some of my students have experienced. A Satori is a direct encounter with Life as Love."
The Path of Meditation
Before any audio downloads or retreat registrations, Aspire asks one question: are you ready to drop the mind? The Path is introduced with a Zen tale of a Master rubbing a brick against a stone while a disciple meditates nearby. Twenty years of sitting, the Master says, have not made the brick a mirror. The teaching lands the way the others do, with a smile, a parable, and the suggestion that the very effort the student is making may be the obstacle.
For those who say yes, the entry point is a Stage 1 meditation set: a Heavy Breathers Catharsis Meditation to be done every day, an Om Walking Meditation three times a week, a Forgiveness Meditation three times a week, and an ambient music recording meant to be played at very low volume through the day. Stage 2 adds Energy Momentum One, a Heart Vipassana practice, the Beloved Meditation given to Siraj by his own master, and a different ambient music recording. Each set is available as a downloadable package for a tax-deductible donation of $100.
Aspire also teaches the forms directly. Walking meditation is described as a slow, ordinary practice with the eyes lowered a few steps ahead, attention held to the contact of each foot with the ground. Zazen is taught as "not even meditation" by Western standards, a sitting in which one lets thoughts come and go without trying to stop them. Truth meditation blends with Vipassana, suspending the habit of labeling everything right or wrong. The Heart Breath Meditation combines breath and imagery, leading the student down to a secret place within where a luminescent being asks that everything valued - pride, attachment, guilt, success, failure, the self itself - be poured into a bowl and dissolved. Siraj invites his students to live inside that image for the rest of the day.
Saturday Morning, Nine O'Clock, Zoom
The week has one fixed gathering at Aspire: a Saturday Discourse with Gregory, held live online from 9:00 to 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time on the Zoom video conferencing platform. The format is simple and unhurried. Students log in from across the country, sometimes from outside it, and Siraj opens a topic. Past themes have included "Meditation: the effort to understand" and a long arc of teachings on the process of Awakening. Anyone can join.
There is no formal charge for the Saturday Discourse, though a love offering toward the cost of hosting is welcomed. The Zoom meeting ID is published online, and a downloadable how-to guide walks newcomers through joining from a computer or mobile device. Those who arrive before 9:00 a.m. find a small chat room already open with other attendees waiting for the call to begin.
Insight Sessions, One Student at a Time
The counseling work is the heart of the practice for many students. Gregory offers Insight Sessions in two lengths: a 25-minute half session for a donation of $50, and a 50-minute full session for a donation of $95. He meets people face to face locally and works with students across the United States by phone or Skype. Aspire asks for three days' notice to cancel without charge.
In an Insight Session, Siraj says, he helps a student "with the issues of daily life and how to approach their individual living with the presence of a spiritual practice." He often assigns homework and journal work, sometimes art, and his orientation is Zen: he teaches through metaphor, sometimes through koans, often through play. Several students describe the weekly session as the thing that keeps their practice alive. "He guides me and presents questions that challenge my human beliefs and pretense," writes one. "In all he does, Greg bestows encouragement, inspiration and wisdom." Another says, "It is doing session with Greg that keeps me on the path. In his wisdom and kindness he always seems to know just what direction to take."
Workshops Along the Coast
About nine times a year, Gregory sets up a single day of meditation work in a rented hall. The workshops are held in two main locations on either side of the state: the Carmel Foundation at 4 Lincoln Street in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and the Encinitas Community Center at 1140 Oakcrest Park Drive in Encinitas, California. A third series, called Prelude to Stillness, is held at Villa Maria Del Mar on the cliffs above the Pacific in Santa Cruz as preparation for the longer retreat held at the same venue.
A Northern California workshop day begins at 9:30 a.m. and ends at 3:00 p.m., with lunch included in the tax-deductible donation of $135. The Southern California workshops run from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. with a $260 donation per person, lunch also included. Parking in Carmel is on Lincoln Street, with the instruction not to use the Foundation's reserved lot; some street spaces are time-limited and the signage must be watched. The Encinitas Community Center has its own parking, and the Santa Cruz venue offers complimentary on-site parking and WiFi.
Five Days at Villa Maria Del Mar
Three times a year, Gregory takes a small group into a five-day retreat at Villa Maria Del Mar in Santa Cruz, with a theme he has been carrying in the months leading up to it. Each retreat is a deep immersion into spiritual consciousness through Tibetan Pulsing meditation, Vipassana, and Gestalt therapy, and is meant to be a chance to "move away from the enemy that lives within - fear, guilt and shame - and come to a place where you can have a direct experience with Love."
A typical retreat day begins with breakfast at 8:00 a.m., followed by morning meditation, group sessions, walking meditation on the bluffs, and Gestalt therapy. Lunch and dinner are served buffet style in the main dining hall, with locally grown food and a salad bar. Quiet hours run from 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. daily. Pets, candles, incense, alcohol, drugs, and smoking are not allowed anywhere on the property, and cellphones are not to be used in the dining room or chapel. The retreat donation varies by room choice and is non-refundable. Guests are asked to bring a journal, a refillable water bottle, a small bowl for walking meditation, comfortable walking shoes, an alarm clock, and layered clothing with a warm jacket.
Breath: Journal of Transcendence
At the heart of the written teaching is Breath: Journal of Transcendence, the monthly newsletter Gregory has been writing for years. The subscription is offered as a single monthly issue for $10, a six-month subscription, and a twelve-month subscription, with archives going back over a decade. Each issue carries articles on spiritual practice, insights on how to meditate, the Message of the Month, Zen stories with a Tao twist, poetry and haiku, ancient teachings, and announcements for upcoming workshops and retreats.
A daily "Sweet Nothing," a short teaching keyed to the day, opens each issue. One example: "Everything, even what we dislike, is happening just as it should in the order of our livingness. Life is revealed through this order," followed by Lao-tzu: "Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." A separate bi-weekly Commentary runs alongside Breath, sometimes as a written piece, sometimes as a podcast or videocast, and is bundled into a Media Subscription at $15 a month with full archive access.
Five Discourse Series Across the Traditions
For students who want a longer arc, Aspire offers five full series of Discourses, each containing 48 audio talks plus a short closing meditation. The series are: The Tao - Primal Virtue, The Tao - The Truth of the Universe, The Tao - Sacred Significance, The Christ Consciousness Discourses, and The Buddha Discourses. Each full set is available for a donation of $720, with the first four-discourse set of any series available as an introduction for a donation of $60.
Each series is meant to be worked through slowly. Siraj suggests listening to each Discourse at least three times a week, letting the closing meditation settle the teaching into the body. The Christ Consciousness Discourses are framed as a "perfect Teacher of Consciousness" series that reframes Jesus as a revealer of the state of Christ that lives within each person, rather than a savior come to rescue humankind from itself. The Buddha Discourses offer simplified versions of Buddhist teachings for a contemporary Western student, built around the refrain of Simplicity, Solitude, and Silence. The Tao series draws from the Tao Te Ching, treating the Tao as "the absolute principle underlying the Universe as the source and ideal of all existence."
Eighteen TV Series, Six Emmys
Aspire TV began in 1983 as an alternative to conventional religious television, broadcast in San Diego and the Los Angeles area before moving entirely to the web. Over more than twenty-five years of production, 18 program series were created, and 14 of them are currently available on the Aspire channel on YouTube and in the online archive. The body of work has earned six Emmy Awards and seven Telly Awards. A late-career series called Aspire Unplugged was filmed as a personal and intimate offering in the twilight of a long teaching life.
The series titles give a sense of the range. From the Heart of the Tao draws on the Tao Te Ching. Passing Through the Fires and What's the Point of It All? sit in the heart of the Awakening teaching. Nobody Likes You Anyway is a famously direct piece about the futility of trying to please everyone. I Gotcha! and That's Easy For You To Say! use humor to expose the tricks the mind plays. The Three Treasures of the Tao, The Eightfold Path of Buddha, and The Beatitudes sit alongside the more recent Wisdom of the Sands and The Road Less Traveled. Individual TV series can be purchased for donations of $40 to $60 each, or watched free online.
Satsang With Siraj
Alongside the television archive runs the Satsang With Siraj radio program, published twice weekly on Saturdays and Sundays. Satsang, in the Indian tradition, is a question-and-answer session with a teacher, and Siraj has been doing it in the format of a radio program for more than thirty years. The published archive of Satsang With Siraj goes back more than nine years, with two new programs added every week, and it is freely available to anyone with a web connection. A Mystery Donor, who wishes to remain unnamed, has funded the entire archive's availability online, and invites others to give to keep it going.
Listeners are invited to send in questions and topic suggestions, and all questions are welcome. The published archive on YouTube and online runs back through 2019, with the 2026 series currently being added.
Written Reflections and the Daily Sweet Nothing
The written practice extends beyond Breath into a free collection of writings updated several times a month, organized by categories that read like a curriculum: Insight, Karma, Zen Tales, Love, Forgiveness, Generosity, Impermanence, Meditation, Catharsis, No-thing, Emotion, Relationship, and Money. The pieces are short and parable-like, often built around a Zen koan, a Sufi tale, or a contemporary scene. The Carpenter's "Mirror," The Empty Boat, The Eyes of Majnun, The Cracked Pot, and The Blind Student are recent examples. The collection of writings is one of the easiest ways to hear Siraj's voice between workshops and retreats.
Hospice, Hospitals, and the Volunteer Heart
Alongside the recorded teaching and the in-person events, Aspire runs an unfunded volunteer program that has been part of its work since the beginning. Gregory makes weekly hospital visits and is a daily hospice volunteer, available on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. He receives no payment for this work, and the gas reimbursement for the travel is one of the line items in Aspire's small operating budget.
Aspire is small by design. The organization has no rented office space, no executive salaries, and only the two administrative staff members plus Gregory himself. The hospice and hospital work is the most tangible part of the teaching, the place where meditation, forgiveness, and the meeting with mortality come together at the bedside of a stranger. Several of the Aspire radio programs and TV episodes were filmed on the Monterey Peninsula, including in Big Sur, and the Carmel-area scenery has long been a visual signature of the work.
Funding the Work
Aspire is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization operating under the corporate umbrella of Unity Church of Escondido, established 1965, and all donations are tax-deductible under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. federal tax code. A receipt is sent for every contribution.
Support comes in several forms. One-time donations of $10 to $10,000 can be made online. Monthly Sponsorships begin at $25 a month and Quarterly Sponsorships at $50 every three months, with sponsors receiving the Message of the Month, full archive access to the Commentaries, Podcasts, and Videocasts, and a complimentary set of Discourses whenever a new program series is born. Donations of appreciated stock and Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) from IRAs are also accepted. Aspire's expenses, including computers and recording equipment, internet and web hosting, postage, transportation to hospital and hospice visits, and the production of television programs at an average of $22,000 per series, are paid for entirely out of these gifts.
How to Begin
For someone new to Aspire, the path is straightforward. The Saturday Discourse on Zoom is the easiest way to meet Gregory, and it costs nothing. The bi-weekly Commentary is free to read, and the written reflections are open to everyone. For those ready to work with a teacher directly, an Insight Session can be scheduled by phone, by Skype, or in person in the Carmel area.
For those ready to begin a daily practice, the Stage 1 meditation set is the formal starting point. The workshops in Carmel and Encinitas are the place to bring the practice into a small group setting with Siraj leading the way, and the annual retreat at Villa Maria Del Mar is the deeper immersion. Students who want to read or subscribe can begin with Breath: Journal of Transcendence or any of the five Discourse series. A free sample issue of Breath is available online.
Whatever the entry point, the teaching is the same. As Siraj writes, "An authentic spiritual practice is a tectonic shift toward the authentic meaning of living and recognizing Life itself as Love." The work is to bring that recognition into every moment of every day, and to do it with mercy, with humor, and with a teacher who is willing to look back at you with the same care he asks you to bring to yourself. Namaste.