ABOUT
NIGHT LOTUS

ABOUT
SHARON JANIS

Listen to: The Spirituality For Dummies CD of Inspiring Music

Listen to: The Glorious Bhagavad Gita Sung in English

Listen to: Diamond Sutra Sung in English

Listen to: Sacred Music Concerts

Listen to: Kashmir Shaivism Texts in Sanskrit and English

Listen to: Sanskrit Spiritual Scriptures

Listen to: Kirtan Chanting

Listen to: Chanting and Devotional Singing

Listen to: Secrets of Spiritual Happiness

 

Watch: The Documentary "Peace Pilgrim: An American Sage Who Walked Her Talk"

Watch: Purnadas: King of the Ecstatic Baul Singers

Watch: The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Music Video

Watch: Many More Inspiring Videos

 

 

Read: Secrets of Spiritual Happiness

Read: Excerpts from Spirituality For Dummies

Read: Breakthrough Consciousness

A Modern Quest For Eternal Truth

Read: The Spiritual Social Commentary Blog

 

Sharon Janis Speaking and Workshops

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Favorite Spiritual Links

Fantastic Monastic Chai

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Sharon Janis Biography

Sharon Janis is an award-winning filmmaker, musician, speaker, and author of books including Secrets of Spiritual Happiness and Spirituality For Dummies. 

While living a simple life of creative solitude along coastal California’s Cardiff by the Sea for the past decade-plus after many years of monastic life and then Hollywood filmmaking, Janis has steadily built and expanded, page by page and file by file, the Night Lotus Website of free multimedia spiritual resources, with thousands of files of books, videos, music, and more, all available for free in a noncommercial setting, without pop-ups, email harvesting, or google ads.  The Night Lotus website draws hundreds of guests from around the world every day, and has been awarded "Cool Site of the Day."

Janis was introduced to the ideas of consciousness by her two psychology teacher parents at an early age, taking a three-month course in hypnosis at age seven and lecturing in her monther's class on dream symbolism at age nine.  While studying neuroscience and film at the University of Michigan, she went to the local Ann Arbor ashram as part of a university field trip, experienced a spiritual awakening, and planned a two-month stay at the ashram of Baba Muktananda. Two months turned into a ten-year journey of monastic life, study, practice, service, and deep spiritual immersion, while scripting and editing hundreds of videos for the worldwide spiritual path of Siddha Yoga Meditation.

From the ashram, Sharon moved to Hollywood for an award-winning career as film editor, director, and producer, working on many news feature shows and television programs including Hard Copy, The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, and X-MEN. These mainstream avenues honed Sharon's creative skills and brought her in touch with speaking to mainstream audiences.

The combination of monastic life and Hollywood creativity paved the way for Sharon to share her offerings with the worldwide community in a vibrant, down-to-earth style.  Today, Janis lives in Cardiff by the Sea, California, as a spirituality speaker, author, and documentary filmmaker, sharing a universal view of spirituality with humor and insight.

Books by Sharon Janis

 

 

  

 

Fun Facts from Sharon's Eclectic Journey

• Sharon Janis was born to Jewish atheist parents, and eventually spent a decade, from age twenty to thirty, living in an Indian-based Ashram.  She now follows a universal spirituality that includes all faiths, and spent several years going to a different denominational service every week.

• Sharon's parents were both psychology teachers - she took a 3-month course in hypnosis at age seven, was reading books by Freud and other psychologists at age nine, and wrote a paper contrasting Freud's structural and topological theories at age twelve. 


• Sharon double-majored in neuroscience and film/video at the University of Michigan, where she began using the self-hypnosis techniques she'd learned during childhood to do what she called "Exploring the Unconscious," and was known to do a bit of faith healing in her college dorm.


• The ashram where Sharon lived, studied, practiced, and served for ten years is the same ashram path described in the "pray" section of Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling book, Eat, Pray, Love.


• After ten years of monastic ashram life, Sharon moved to Hollywood, where she edited and produced many popular television shows and movies, including X-Men, the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Candid Camera, Hard Copy, and many news and news feature programs, winning local, national, and international awards for her work.


• Sharon offers a popular and extensive website with hundreds of pages of free multimedia spiritual resources - videos, music, writings, photos, and more - often on a shoestring budget (generally living under the poverty line), believing that spiritual teachings and blessings should be offered as freely as possible and that the universe provides the daily bread, even if it's not always as fancy a bread as we might like to enjoy.


• Sharon produced a powerful documentary about the American sage Peace Pilgrim for the Friends of Peace Pilgrim foundation, and found great inspiration in Peace's story about living a simple life that is in harmony with your life's mission.

• Sharon has been a frequent lecturer at the Golden Door Spa, where copies of Spirituality For Dummies have been offered in every guest room.

• Sharon offers sacred music concerts with songs and chants from various spiritual traditions (view video clips from Sharon's sacred music concert at the Sun Valley Opera House at: http://www.spiritual-music.com.) 

• More of Sharon's personal spiritual philosophy can be found in her interview at First 30 Days. 

 

 

Watch a short video about
Sharon Janis and Spirituality For Dummies

If you don't see a screen here, click to view on YouTube

 

 

 

Other Relevant Pages

Sharon's Main Speaker Page

Photos and Info About Previous Events

Video and Audio Clips of Sharon Speaking and Singing

Photos and Videos "From a Monastic Life to Hollywood"

Sharon's Sacred Music Concerts

Articles

 

 

Some Works by Sharon Janis

Books: Read excerpts from Spirituality For Dummies,
and full versions of her other books

 

Devotional and Scriptural Music CDs

(all available to play online for free)

 

 

 

 

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