A Traveler’s Friendship: The Next Link in the Chain From Ooty, after saying further thankyous and goodbyes to Ramesh and his family, I caught the bus to Mysore, where - during my brief overnighter - I rang R. K. Narayan, famous for his beautifully crafted books and short stories centred around the fictitious town of … Continue reading “Spiritual Autobiography: India 3”
Tag: Sufism
Spiritual Autobiography 2 (India)
Synchronicity – Beginnings and New Directions It began soon after leaving Kodai. On the morning I left, after promising Ramesh that I would meet him in a week or two in Ooty, I walked the few hundred meters along Coaker’s Walk for a final time, to say goodbye to Mr. Mehta. He was there, ‘Chipper’ … Continue reading Spiritual Autobiography 2 (India)
Spiritual Autobiography: India
Prologue Beginning today it is my intention, over the next few weeks for those interested in such things, to publish extracts from a ‘Spiritual Autobiography’ that I have recently been working on. Each piece published has its place in the genesis of all the material I have already published on WordPress over the past two … Continue reading Spiritual Autobiography: India
What is Love & Meeting
What is Love and Meeting Lying on the bed on a sunny afternoon, looking out through lace curtained windows at the play of sunlight and shadow on the yellow golden leaves of the Golden Elm, moving in the strong breeze. Filigrees of light and shadow moving on the window-frame. Around me in different poses of … Continue reading What is Love & Meeting
To Hope against Hope
Its been like winter here for the last few days; cold, wet, windy. Fitting then that I recall here, in relation to ‘Hope’ or its dangers, the mid-Victorian English poet Thomas Hardy’s response to the dying days of the 19th century and the turning of the 20th. His poem, ‘The Darkling Thrush’ I will quote … Continue reading To Hope against Hope
Suffering and its Antidote: Proximity
What is it, this intense distress in seeing the suffering of one’s fellow creatures? And why not the same for humankind? Jesus said when reprimanding his disciples outraged by a woman pouring expensive oil over his head whilst suggesting that it could have been sold ‘to feed the poor’: “Leave her alone. Why trouble you … Continue reading Suffering and its Antidote: Proximity
The Meeting Place
The Meeting Place (the land between the two seas) Searching for a ‘place’ where one may really meet other than self has led me to the conclusion that - for such a place to exist – one must first create it in one-self. However, before one begins on such an enterprise it is vital to … Continue reading The Meeting Place
Moving Towards Manifestation 2
‘Al Musawwir’ The ‘Flawless’ Shaper of Forms The final point, even if only for a moment, as the – as yet – ‘unformed’ moves towards form, the final act in this ‘shaping’ process. There are many things that contribute to this ‘final-shape’ which impede any sense of “flawlessness” in that which is created, and it … Continue reading Moving Towards Manifestation 2
In My Beginning is My End
What is that place, between sleeping, dreaming, and awakening, that is beyond sleep, beyond the play of mind in dreams, beneath pain, that is still, and yet …watching? * Some years ago now, a school-days friend, Paul, who used to live just up the road from me, back then, said something similar to T S … Continue reading In My Beginning is My End
Moving Toward Manifestation: The Impossibility of Perfection
It is said that ‘the past is gone, and the future, a lie yet to be born’! What is it, then, this search for ‘perfectibility,’ if not a ‘lie’ in the making? According to Islam only Allah is perfect, and ‘nothing can be compared to Him’ (surah 112:4, Al Ikhlas). It is this surah that … Continue reading Moving Toward Manifestation: The Impossibility of Perfection
Tracks in a Pathless Land 