Visitors are now able to access Esalen as well as other businesses and trails in northern Big Sur via twice-daily convoys on Highway 1 operated by Caltrans.
Convoys run only at 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. each day. These are the only opportunities to travel into and out of Big Sur, so visitors must plan accordingly.
Led by a rotating roster of resident, local, and visiting teachers, Open Classes are available to all guests at Esalen. Below is a sample calendar — please check the schedule once you arrive on campus for information about specific times and offerings during your stay.
5:00 – 5:45 pm
How to Drop Into Esalen
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
10:15 – 11:15 am
Morning Class
2:15 – 3:15 pm
Afternoon Class
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
10:15 – 11:15 am
Morning Class
2:15 – 3:15 pm
Afternoon Class
7:30 pm
Wed Evening Program
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
10:15 – 11:15 am
Morning Class
2:15 – 3:15 pm
Afternoon Class
5:00 – 5:45 pm
How to Drop Into Esalen
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
10:15 – 11:15 am
Morning Class
2:15 – 3:15 pm
Afternoon Class
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
No classes on Monday
7:30 – 8:30 am
Enliven
7:30 – 8:30 am
Enliven
7:30 – 8:30 am
Enliven
7:30 – 8:30 am
Enliven
No classes on Sunday
4 – 5:00 pm
Restore
4 – 5:00 pm
Restore
4 – 5:00 pm
Restore
4 – 5:00 pm
Restore
4 – 5:00 pm
Restore
5:00 – 5:45 pm
How to Drop Into Esalen
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
7:30 pm
Wed Evening Program
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
5:00 – 5:45 pm
How to Drop Into Esalen
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
No classes today
7:30 – 8:30 am
Enliven
4:00 – 5:00 pm
Expand
7:30 – 8:30 am
Enliven
4:00 – 5:00 pm
Expand
7:30 – 8:30 am
Enliven
4:00 – 5:00 pm
Restore
4:00 – 5:00 pm
Expand
7:30 – 8:30 am
Enliven
4:00 – 5:00 pm
Expand
No classes today
5:00 – 5:45 pm
How to Drop Into Esalen
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
10:15 – 11:15 am
Morning Class
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
10:15 – 11:15 am
Morning Class
7:30 pm
Wednesday Evening Program
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
10:15 – 11:15 am
Morning Class
5:00 – 5:45 pm
How to Drop Into Esalen
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
10:15 – 11:15 am
Morning Class
7:30 – 8:30 am
Morning Movement
Specific offerings will vary from day to day and week to week.
Join Sam for a deep-dive into Esalen's archives to explore the transformative origins of the Esalen Institute and Human Potential. Discover the roots of a movement that forever changed the landscape of personal growth and self-discovery.
Meditate with the surging energy of the waves and let tension dissolve on the ocean breeze. Adorned with flowers and local healing herbs, this unique experience at the Esalen baths blends personal inquiry, herbal education, and sensory delight. Each ritual is an emergent collaboration of sound, sensation, intention, and floral offering to the sea. Come early, class size is very limited.
A spacious, slow-paced exploration of the body home using therapeutic yoga and other somatic modalities to make space for breath, alleviate tension, and access greater mobility and fluidity — in flesh and bones, and in life. Accessible to all levels.
A transformative breathwork journey rooted in rhythm, designed to reconnect you with the innate cycles of your body and the natural world. This dynamic practice weaves together accessible breathing patterns, sound, and movement to foster deep connection, release stress, and bring you back into balance. By harmonizing your breath with the pulse of life, Breathscapes helps you heal burnout, cultivate self-love, and gain clarity, offering a profound space for transformation and embodied presence. Whether you seek renewal or reprieve, Breathscapes is a powerful gateway to inner alignment and vitality.
Yoga Nidra is a guided meditation that brings you to a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping. This practice reprograms and repatterns your mind and body to prime your creativity to flow freely through you and onto your page.
Sink below the mind chatter and external layer to tap into your authentic voice and share who you truly are. Meditation, movement, and written reflections.
The Healing Circle is a space where you are invited to step out of ordinary time into a safe, accepting environment in which to explore, witnessing and sharing with an open heart. Experience breath and meditation, facilitated heart sharing, ritual, and group reiki.
An all-level Hatha-inspired physical practice paired with breathwork and mindfulness to rediscover your intuition and cultivate your mind-body connection.
So, you’ve finally arrived at Esalen — welcome home! Join us in exploring Esalen’s historic, culture-shifting origins, the vision for human potential, and our core values, as we embark on another 60 years of transformational education. Prepare to learn, grow, experiment, and evolve as we shepherd you on how best to integrate into this unique community and get the most out of your time on this sacred, ancient land.
Reconnecting to the body’s innate wisdom and intelligence is a practice in trust, presence, and acknowledgment. With mindfulness and curiosity, we will attune to our bodies through somatic experiencing practices, guided visualization, and self regulation that release physical stagnancies to fully inhabit and enjoy living in this beautiful, physical vessel!
Gestalt, like meditation, is an awareness practice that also provides a means for us to connect in the present moment. In this class, we will re-create and experience an Esalen style check-in, building spontaneous and intentional community. An Esalen tradition.
Begin your day from a resourced place, connected with your mind, body, and spirit. We’ll greet the morning by making space to connect with a gentle flow state, utilizing meditation and the practice of Morning Pages. Bridging mind and spirit connection, we’ll then incorporate the body through an intentional practice of mindful yin and a gentle flow.
MojaFlow is an experience to provoke and elevate you to discover new realms of energy and inspire you to experience the joy of going beyond barriers in your own practice and life. Class will include a somatic warm-up, breath-work, and strengthening exercises to support the body/mind connection.
Esalen is a special place, a healing portal because of the four waters on the land. We will journey to meet "Mama Yaku" the spirit of water and do ceremony at the creek.
We will learn how to make offerings to the earth in order to develop a sacred relationship with the most important, benevolent being to humanity —"Pachamama" Mother Earth — so she can support and guide our path.
How do we build a sacred relationship to plants and animals that can support us on our path? You will learn about "Ayni" the quechua word for: Sacred reciprocity and how to speak the language of plants.
In class we contemplate spiritual/philosophical teachings, slow down and move mindfully by co-ordinating breath with movement, sustain poses to deepen focus and awareness, practice breathing exercises and meditation to hone skillfulness in listening to the inner subtle experiences.
Life force energy runs through us, is around us, and is within us at all times. Living disconnected from source energy can leave us burned out, depleted, and disjointed. Through embodiment, intuitive, and energetic practices, like somatic experiencing, guided visualization, and energy work, we will explore and release any obstacles hindering our connection to our authentic and inherent power.
Rest is revolutionary. When we gift ourselves the permission to slow down and simply be, we downshift and regulate our nervous system — a powerful way to recharge. Through restorative activities like deep, conscious breathing, body awareness, and restorative yoga, we’ll invite our entire selves to practice the art of resting, encouraging our body’s innate wisdom and healing to emerge.
This is a conscious dance practice for people who love or are curious about movement. Here in the company of non-dancers and dancers, we get supple and strong, we explore expressions, we celebrate creativity, we expand empathy, we move and are moved.
Clear out your mental clutter and emotional blockages to tap into your intuition. Using a variety of healing modalities, you will connect with your higher intuitive self.
Take a somatic dive into the depths of the self with an enlivening, vigorous moving meditation that borrows from a variety of modalities, incorporates ancestral movement, and culminates in seated stillness. Shake, sound, and dance your way to deepened connection with your miraculous body, and with the body of the world.
Understanding the emotional-physical body connection is an incredible key to living a full life. Come take space exploring where emotions reside in the body, building emotional fluency for resilience, and developing your personal emotional lexicon to experience how feeling your emotions can unlock your potential.
This interactive, process-based class explores the playful and generative intersections of art and artificial intelligence. Guided by the philosophy of the human potential movement, participants will become co-creators with AI, engaging in hands-on projects that transform their voices across languages, create music, and engage in philosophical conversations with AI, challenging their perceptions of art, creativity, and technology.