Transparent Body, Luminous World: The Tantric Path of Non-Duality – Mandali Retreat Center, Quarna Sopra

Transparent Body, Luminous World: The Tantric Path of Non-Duality is a non-duality retreat led by Rupert Spira at Mandali Retreat Center in Quarna Sopra, in the Verbano-Cusio-Ossola province of Italy. It is meant for people drawn to the tantric approach to non-dual understanding, and to the idea that the body and the world can be met as transparent and luminous rather than as obstacles to awareness.

The retreat is held in person and runs for about a week. It sits within Mandali's Themed Retreats, a strand of the programme devoted to a single teaching and led by an expert teacher.

What to Expect

Mandali describes its Themed Retreats as a deep dive into a specific theme or teaching. Here the theme is the tantric path of non-duality, which the title frames through two images: a transparent body and a luminous world. Expect the week to be organised around Rupert Spira's teaching on this subject, in a setting built for sustained attention rather than a quick weekend of ideas.

Mandali presents its retreats as spaces curated for deep insight and for shifts that carry into everyday life. A themed week of this kind suits someone who wants to stay with one line of inquiry for days at a time, not sample many.

About Rupert Spira

Rupert Spira is a teacher of non-duality and returns to Mandali regularly. Alongside this tantric retreat, he leads several other themed weeks at the centre, each with its own focus: one on the Ashtavakra Gita and the essence of non-duality, one on the divine name in the sense of "I Am", and one exploring non-duality through poetry under the title The White Radiance of Eternity. Anyone who has attended one of those, or who is curious which angle on non-duality speaks to them most, will find this retreat a distinct offering from the same teacher.

The Setting

Mandali Retreat Center is in Quarna Sopra, a small village in the hills of the Piedmont region of northern Italy. The centre hosts retreats throughout the year, from short three-day stays to full weeks, including its own in-house programme of restorative retreats built around movement and meditative practices. Guests stay on site, and the centre has rooms for them. The pace there is unhurried, which suits a teaching retreat where the quiet between sessions matters as much as the sessions themselves.

Before You Go

This is one of Mandali's Themed Retreats, so it is built around the teacher's subject rather than a general programme of yoga and meditation. If you are new to Rupert Spira's work, his other retreats at Mandali, listed on the centre's schedule, give a sense of how he approaches the territory.