Meeting the Masters is mostly about a single year in my life, the year my spiritual guides made contact with me and the first year of my tuition by them. This was also the only year I recorded their messages in a systematic (or relatively systematic) way. During that period Michael and I made a month long visit to India which is described in the book. However, shortly after that we returned to India to live and we stayed there for five years, during which time the Masters continued to talk to me through the mediumship of Michael. It seems that part of the reason we went to India was that it was easier for them to do this. I doubt it's the case now but India, or the rural parts of it anyway which is where we mostly were, really was less materialistic than the West back then. Our teachers also wanted to separate us out from the world for a spell so that we could devote ourselves to the spiritual quest without distraction.
Our bungalow in Yercaud |
I regard those five years in India as the most important of my life but didn't include much about them in the book partly for reasons of space, but also because I wanted to focus on the words of the Masters as recorded during that first year. The following piece is something I did originally include but then cut out as not particularly relevant to the main thread of the story. It's not without interest though, and I hope earns its place as a post in the blog.
My visit to Father Bede's ashram was nearly forty years ago and it may be completely different today, but that's not the issue. My point here is that the 'all religions are one' attitude, popular during the 20th century, doesn't really work. Because there is nothing hidden anymore and we appear to have easy access to everything that has ever existed, it is tempting to blend traditions and think we are getting the best of all worlds. But greater breadth often means less depth. I do think we can learn from other traditions, and one of the advantages of living at the present time is that we have that possibility. But if you blend the outer forms of traditions that have sprung from totally different revelations you will lose the connection they both might have had to the source of all.
When I visited Father Bede I was more persuaded of the idea that all religions express the same truth than I am now. Today, we can see that God is conceived very differently in some religions compared to others, and the desired heavenly destination is not the same in all cases either. Obviously, there are strong similarities and the mystics of every religion do have much in common, but we live in a world which is increasingly dominated by spiritual evil and it seems clear to me that only Christ has the power to stand up to that evil. I wonder that if Father Bede were still alive whether he might reassess the wisdom of blending Hindu and Christian iconography at his ashram.