About us

The Leela School

Committed to Awakening for all

The Leela School is part of the Leela Foundation - a non-profit corporation founded in 2006 by spiritual teacher and author Eli Jaxon-Bear and dedicated to the awakening of the world, one heart and one mind at a time. From this ground of awakening, we train highly skilled, ethical and compassionate facilitators to support healing and self-realization for others.

We serve a diverse and growing global community around the world, with training retreats in Ashland, OR US, Byron Bay, Australia and Europe.

Our offering

We offer facilitator training programs, private mentoring and retreats for deep healing and self-realization. Our flagship programs include:

The 1-year Leela Depth Immersion Program. Learn more...
The 2-year Leela Facilitator Program, which includes our Advanced Enneagram of Liberation Training and Clinical and Ericksonian Hypnotherapy modules accredited by the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners. Learn more...
The 1-year Psilocybin Facilitator training, licensed by the State of Oregon and designed to prepare you for the State of Oregon facilitator licensure (OHA and HECC-approved). Learn More...

The True Friend Method™

A bridge between therapy and non-duality

Simply put, the True Friend Method is a powerful combination of a silent compassionate stance and the skillful means for healing and self-inquiry.

The TRUE FRIEND STANCE

At the basis of all our work lies the principle of being a True Friend, which simply but powerfully means meeting ourselves and one another with a quiet mind and an open heart, not taking anything personally. A True Friend holds no position for or against; does not agree, nor disagree, is not full of answers, nor ignorant. A True Friend models the possibility to meet whatever arises in another without reacting, providing a clear wisdom mirror for the individual’s own essence and intelligence to shine through. This powerful stance supports and transforms everything else.

In order to be a True Friend, you have to be out of the way. It starts with you. During the first part of all our programs, we offer skillful, honest, loving and direct support for your own healing, awakening and deepening. We support you to inquire into the structure of your ego and realize your True Nature, which is already free, empty and deeply fulfilled.

The Skillful Means

Out of this quiet ground arise the skilful means to support others and serve the awakening of the world. They include:

Entering deep therapeutic rapport
Compassionate inquiry and skillful means for eliciting a powerful present and desired condition
Effective interventions at all 3 levels of therapeutic work: 1) symptoms removal, 2) deep emotional healing for ego strengthening, 3) self-inquiry, insight facilitation and insight integration for ego transcendence
Insight into the structure of our ego through the powerful wisdom mirror of the Enneagram of Liberation
Safe and effective guidance of expanded states of consciousness, including hypnotherapeutic trance & plant medicine-assisted journeys.

Learn more about our work

Free 3-part Introduction to the True Friend Method

Eli Jaxon-Bear and the Leela School Teachers present the foundation of the True Friend Method in this free 3-part course - a glimpse into the possibility of a happy, free and fulfilled life.

OUr People

in quiet service

Eli Jaxon-Bear

Founder, CEO and Principal Teacher

Eli Jaxon-Bear is an American spiritual teacher and author. He is the inspiration, the founding ground and the visionary behind the school’s birth and expansion. Besides his role as a principal teacher, he serves as CEO, responsible for vision, direction and all major strategic and operational decisions.

Eli’s approach to training therapists combines his 40 years of developing new therapeutic skills with his teacher’s transmission of silence. He ran the clinical hypnosis certification program at Esalen Institute, Big Sur California, and Institute Dr Schmida, Vienna, from 1983 to 1992.

Eli trained with and was inspired by various spiritual traditions. He was initiated into a Sufi clan in Marrakesh. He was appointed head of the first Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center in Marin County by Kalu Rinpoche in 1978. In Japan, he was presented with a Zen Teaching Fan, passing on the authority to transmit the dharma from the oldest living Zen master in 1983.

After an eighteen-year spiritual search, when Eli met his final teacher, in January 1990, everything changed. Papaji asked Eli to return to the world of therapy so that “both client and therapist can wake up!” The Leela School is the fruit of Papaji’s words.

Eli is the author of Wake Up and Roar: Satang with Papaji; Sudden Awakening: Stop Your Mind, Open Your Heart, Discover Your True Nature; From Fixation to Freedom: The Enneagram of Liberation; An Outlaw Makes It Home: The Awakening of Spiritual Revolutionary; The Awakened Guide: The Next Wave.

Lisa Schumacher

Co-founder, Lead Teacher and Director of Programs and People

Lisa is an American spiritual teacher and poet, directly instructed by Gangaji to give satsang and spread the possibility of awakening. She serves as a lead teacher, director of Programs and People and VP of the Board of Directors. She is responsible for program design and implementation, strategy, fundraising, ethics, conflict resolution and communication. Lisa makes sure that the school looks after its people and remains in integrity.

Lisa is one of the founding teachers at the Leela School, and has been by Eli’s side for over 20 years as his devoted student.. She teaches the Leela Facilitator programs, Advanced Skills, Enneagram courses, and the in-person Core Training for the Psilocybin Facilitator Program.

Lisa offers awakening retreats in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. She operates a private practice as a Leela Therapist and Spiritual Mentor in Southern Oregon.

You can contact Lisa here: lisas@leela.org. And you can book a session with her here: https://mentorwithlisa.as.me/LeelaSession

Jared Franks

Co-founder, Lead Teacher and Managing Director

Jared Franks is an Australian spiritual teacher, educator and psychotherapist (AU). He is one of the founding teachers of the school, and now serves as a lead teacher, Managing Director, VP of the Board of Directors and runs the Australian operations of the Leela School. He is responsible for strategic planning, implementation, program development, certification and staff oversight. Jared makes sure that the vision and strategy of the school become a reality.

Jared met Eli Jaxon-Bear in 2009 at a retreat in Sydney, Australia. This profound meeting changed the course of his life, immersing himself in the enneagram, and Leela Therapy training, as well as a devotion to awakening from egoic suffering. In 2013, Jared received certification as a Leela Therapist in Clinical Hypnosis, Neurolinguistics and the Enneagram of Character Fixation.

Jared co-teaches the Leela Therapy Certification Program and facilitates continued professional development courses and retreats within the Leela School. He runs a private Leela therapy practice from Byron Bay, Australia and holds awakening retreats in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Europe.

You can contact Jared here: jared@leela.org. And you can book a session with him here: https://jaredfranks.as.me/

Joey Bloom

Instructor and Digital Product Manager

Leigh Estok

Administrative Director

Casey Frieder

Program Director - Psilocybin Facilitator Training

Casey serves as a mentor and program director for the Psilocybin Facilitator Training. He has worked as a chiropractic physician for over a decade, offering a holistic healing approach, and currently practices at Siskiyou Vital Medicine Clinic in Medford, Oregon. Casey earned his doctoral degree from the University of Western States (UWS) in Portland, Oregon, as well as a BS in Human Biology from UWS and a BA in Philosophy & Religious Studies from the University of New Mexico. He is deeply devoted to the truth of awakening through self-inquiry that began with Ramana Maharishi and continues to expand through the Leela School.

Jasmin Lace

Communications Manager

Meet our broader team

Our teachers

Our Mentors

Our Facilitators

Our Values

Quiet mind, Open Heart, Integrity, Dignity, Equality, Diversity

Through our work, we seek to inspire unconditional respect for human dignity, equality and diversity. All our students, certified practitioners, mentors and teachers are called to embody the following principles:

Embody the qualities of a True Friend in rapport
Facilitate sessions in a compassionate and heart-based manner
Commit to self-examination
Demonstrate ethical integrity treating all individuals justly, fairly, and with empathy and grace
Act responsibly within scope of practice
Foster the well-being of both individuals and society by facilitating the realization of our true nature
Embrace vulnerability - increase capacity to meet and open to what is uncomfortable and unknown
Think critically and creatively assimilating a broad range of knowledge
Demonstrate social and cultural awareness - the ability to acknowledge and deal effectively with cultural and ethnic diversity issues
Demonstrate capacity to practice in a trauma-sensitive manner
Work cooperatively effectively giving and receiving feedback.

Our Certifications

Become a licenced facilitator

Upon completion of our 1-year Psilocybin Facilitator Program, you can apply to be certified as a licenced Psilocybin Facilitator with the State of Oregon.

Upon completion of our 2-year Leela Facilitator Program, you can apply to be certified as a Leela Facilitator. Our program is also accredited by the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners and you can additionally apply to be certified as ACHE Clinical Hypnotherapist.

Upon completion of at least 3 years of our Leela Facilitator Program, you can apply to become part of our Mentor in Training program, become a Certified Mentor with the school and support new students.

Discover our facilitator programs

Further resources

The Foundations of our work

Download PDF (German)
Download PDF (English)
Download PDF (Slovenian)

The True Friend e-book

Download PDF (English)
Download PDF (German)
Download PDF (French)