ASHIK
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Ashik Lynch was born in London in 1948, grew up in Oxfordshire and Somerset and graduated in philosophy in 1968 from the University of Oxford. For the next several years he was a professional musician based in London, making ends meet by driving a cab and writing copy for a publisher of encyclopedias. In South California in 1973 he was playing surf music, country, reggae, and pop in many different bands on electric violin. During these many years he had passionate affairs with each of the seven most popular types of intoxicant, not always at the same time.
In 1976, after reaching what felt like an irredeemable trough of failure, he experienced a total change of direction. He abandoned all pharmaceutical assistance, took up an intense regime of fasting and running, then started to wander without goal. He hitched and rode freight-trains across the West, working as a pick-and-shovel laborer and housepainter. He crossed Mexico and lived in Guatemala by beachcombing and playing tin whistle on the streets. By early 1979 he was in the Rajneesh ashram in India, and he worked in Rajneesh communities for the next 6 years, playing music with Peter Makena, Prem Joshua, Miten, and others. In 1986 he drove through Mexico in an ancient school bus, and then left for London where he worked as a sub-editor for Nature.
In 1989 He and Nina went to Japan, where they settled in Yokohama, and for four years he taught English, played fiddle in the streets, edited scientific journals, did voice-overs and TV commercials, and joined the well-known Okinawan band "Champloose" on violin, touring and recording in Japan and Europe. In 1994 he made a home in the Rocky Mountains above Boulder, where he built a recording studio and recorded the solo album "Dancing Lightly", now re-released as “Gypsy Soul” on New Earth Records.
Now he plays music and designs websites at home, improving the house at every opportunity. Each summer he meets the challenges of growing vegetables at 8100 feet, with only four months free of frost. Slowly the soil gets a little richer, and the harvest more abundant. He has been doing the Work of Byron Katie since 2004.
Ashik and Nina have two border collies, Paddy and Rosie.
NINA
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“My first memory of looking for God was when I was eleven. I went to every church in my hometown of Oxford, England, and asked them if they could tell me how to find God. I had not been raised in any religious tradition, just a token Christianity which mostly consisted of loving to sing hymns in school.
“In the early seventies this appetite for truth brought me to practice TM and then to California to study with Carl Rogers in La Jolla. I went to India, to the ashram of Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho. I became a disciple of Rajneesh, adopting the name Ma Prem Nanda. After three years at the Rajneesh ashram, devoting myself to service and meditation I went to live in a Rajneesh commune in England. ”
“When I left it was a big step to join the world again after having lived for nearly ten years with nothing of my own except a change of clothes, a pair of shoes or sandals, working every single day for a bed and food, with only occasional gifts of money to buy a warm sweater or some socks, a postage stamp, or some toothpaste.
“Now I had to find my own food and my own money, my own roof to sleep under, and after leaving the shelter of this monastic lifestyle I moved to Japan. I am so grateful to Japan and the gracious people there who took me in and helped me on my way back into the marketplace. The whole of Japan was and still is like one big commune to me. Everything is based on cooperation and collaboration and I fit right in. I loved that I could be silent, and that my silence was accepted.
“It was in Japan that a very old friend from my days in India gave me Byron Katie's book "Loving What Is." At the time I was not looking for any other guidance in my internal life. Osho had been my master, my guru, and I am eternally grateful to all that he gave me and for showing me the way of meditation. I had practiced meditation for thirty years and when I met Byron Katie and started to do The Work daily my internal and external life totally changed.
“I have devoted myself to the Work and am a Certified Facilitator of the Work, offering sessions and workshops worldwide. I love my immediate fearlessplanet family and how supportive they are in helping me to become all that I can be and to share all that I found and I invite you all to join us in a fearless planet.”