I have in the past five years gone from a cocaine snorting drug dealer with a death wish... to a nature loving meditation loving,spiritual truth seeker

Thanks in part to this place ....

The Chisholme Institute 

Formally known as "The Beshara School of Esoteric Education" (a name which I very much preferd!)

"Come, come again, whoever you are, come! Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come! Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times, Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are"      ~ Rumi

 I have spent a lot of time in this place over the past 2 years... visiting, studying or volunteering in there huge organic garden......   

 

Discovering the place and myself

When I first came here I was shy to talk about my thoughts of an esoteric nature most people had told me I was mad up until then! .. 

Not suprising really my awakening was that abrupt I spent the first few years running around trying to explain to everybody that... 

"we are all one!!!"

"Its dead simple!!!" 

"Were all one and all you need is love !!!" 

In my naiveté when the vail was lifted from me I thought id just have to explain it to others and they would see too … It never quite worked like that!.... most people got scared of me! or said I needed help… 

But I got through it and I found(what was at the time) The Beshara School of Esoteric Education... when I done my first course there it was like being understood for the first time in my life my heart almost exploded with joy   

The study sessions or an informal chat about whatever comes to mind when we read a text such as a rumi peom or Tao De Ching verse...  I fell instantly in love with the place! And I had only scratched the surface 

"I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known and I created a world in order to be known."

Then after I done a weekend “Discovering Unity” course I went to work as volunteer and got to scratch below the surface and what I found was a great mystery , something drawing me in, a yearning to investigate, so I did and I signed up for the six month course   

"You may have many ideas or apprehensions as to what this course will be. You may also have many ideas as to the nature of reality. You are asked to leave these behind you now (you may pick them when you leave.. if you wish) and embark upon this course freely and openly, without the baggage or preconceived ideas and opinions. You must be prepared for these six months to give up your attachments to the things you have known, both of yourselves and of the world for we have only a short period of time"  ~ Bulent Rauf(founder of the Beshara School) ..on introducing new students to the six month course

 I got through that sometimes riding the challenges... sometimes fighting them... Always being confronted with myself and being forced to look .. 

I often say when asked if I got anything from the course that 

“no I didn't”

.. infact I was able to put stuff down, witch is much more valuable, if you can manage to do it…. 

For me... the mystery is still there, it keeps drawing my gaze,asking me to look, its not just at Beshara now its in me,.... pulling at me, ...its completely and utterly perplexing!,.. but when you get used to that, its like being in love, you just accept it, you don't own it or control it, it just is, its the mystery of your own Being   

I consider myself very fortunate to have down a six month course at this place especially as it is probably the last one that will happen since the place is and has been restructured slightly (hence the name change) in essence its still the same, same beautiful estate with its beautiful woodland

and beautiful organic vegetable gardens 

 But most of all same beautiful people

Thats me on the far left sitting on the plant box !!

All they photographs were taken during or soon after my six month course and are on the Chisholme Instutuite facebook page

Anyway its now been a year and half since I finished my six month course and now Im living in a beautiful little cottage in the countryside 7 miles from the nearest town I still meditate every day and I spend a lot of time contemplating the complexitys and mystery of life :).... quite a contrast from my partying every night , nightclub life .... 

Isnt it funny how thing work out ...

If this goes down well with peeps Ill post more about my course and experiences at Chisholme/Beshara