Convocation at Chisholme House, 4-6 September 2015

 

Past, Present and Future

The brightest of sunshine blessed the weekend when some 135 people came together to hear news, clarify understanding, refresh the intention and commit to the next forty years and beyond, for Chisholme. 

The zikr in the Meadhall on Friday night was followed by two days of talks, conversation and informal meetings. 

Saturday morning was dedicated to appreciating the Past.
Below is an audio and transcript of Peter Young’s talk, which was followed by a lively and wide-ranging discussion.

Saturday afternoon was about the Present.
To explore this, we were given an excercise in intention and imagination; read more...

Sunday was for looking to the Future.
Richard Gault, the 'about-to-be' Principal 
Aliya Ryan the Development Office Coordinator
Aaron Cass, Director of Studies for the next Six-month Course 
Tim Roberts, Chairman of the Institute
Open Session – comments from participants  

Saturday Morning:

A talk by Peter Young with opening words by Christopher Ryan

Audio recording, preceded by an introduction by Christopher Ryan:
Download this recording, or play it now.

Transcript of the talk:
Opening words by Christopher Ryan

Four years ago we became aware that a change was needed at Chisholme, and we were all invited to take part in number of conversation weeks, weeks of discussion and consultation over a period of a couple of months, culminating in a long weekend of meetings. From this a number of groups were set up to look at various aspects of how the school could operate better in the changing times. This included setting up the Development Office, which introduced the ‘Discovering Unity’ courses and the recently completed 2-year modular course.

Then last October the people living at Chisholme undertook a two-month in-house sabbatical retreat  – thus beginning a year of preparation, to look at what was here and to discover what needed to be done in preparation for the re-launching of a six month course this coming October.

This was followed by an invitation to all of us to come and take part in study retreat weeks, from  Dec 2014 to now Sept 2015. These weeks have been a continuation and expansion of  the earlier in-house retreat, and were important in taking a good look at the changes, both current and for the future here at Chisholme, as well as trialling some of the texts, as well as the manner of the forthcoming long course. And the Convocation this weekend is also part of this process. 

Now, as this morning we’re dealing with the past, I’d like for a moment to look back - to before Chisholme before Sherborne and Swyre Farm, even before the word Beshara appeared to us, when a gathering took place in a room in a flat in West London where Bulent was present. After nearly an hour of responding to questions, there was a pause, and Bulent then spoke of what we refer to as the Four Pills. He prefaced this prescription with a statement, beginning:

“Everything is of one thing - there is no other thing except that one
There is no possibility of communing or communicating
or going back to that one thing through nothing
Therefore you have to build into something and then reach.”

This is perhaps the one common denominator that has brought us all here today – the one point on which we can all be in clear agreement – for if there is only one thing, and no other thing, then our presence here can only be according to our essential non-existence.

And in the same vein, I am reminded of the first time Hudai came to meet Üftade. When he walked up the hill in all his Kadi’s robes, and by the time he reached this place at the top of a very steep hill his clothes were splattered with mud and he was worn out. He sees this old man hoeing a patch of ground on the hillside. It is Uftade, who says to Hudai:

'It is a pity, Kadi Efendi. You knocked on the wrong door. Here is the door of non-existence. We are the slaves of the gate of non-existence. As for you, you are a person of the door of existence. We two would not be able to get along together.
You have knowledge and learning, fame and honour, wealth and property - yours is a prosperous life. Slaves such as us do not have anything at all other than God.'


At this point, Hudai declares that he abandons everything.
So, the proposal is that we begin this convocation by returning to that point of essential non-existence, essential agreement, and ask to be increased in knowledge from that point.
(For the full story of the first meeting of Uftade and Hudai, see here...) 

Peter Young now speaks:
Thank you! (and responding to Christopher's opening words) ...that was my introductory paragraph...

...so, as Christopher said, this is in some sense the culmination of a year of preparation for the re-starting of the six-month course. Now, we don’t know whether the six-month course has a place in the scheme of things and whether it is going to continue year after year as we always thought it would – at least I did…

Until four years ago, when there was no six-month course because there were no students – actually, there was one – but we couldn’t really call it a six-month course – and that gave rise to the events that Christopher was describing, and we knew then that something was afoot and that there needed to be quite deep self-scrutiny and re-considering what it was we were doing and how we were doing it, whether is was fit for purpose, as they say.

I, for one, believed in these courses. I believed that they would, effectively, go on forever more or less as they were, because they had been so extraordinarily well received by us, of my generation. Completely transformative, and I believed that this would continue to be the case for people like me who wanted to find this source of change in their lives. So, I think we probably fell behind the curve. At the same time, that essential quality – even quality doesn’t quite do it justice – that essential ‘essentiality’ that was present in those courses early on, beginning 40 years ago, has continued ever since and is still here, in evidence, and present for all comers.

Those of us who are here become a little inured to this essential quality, but when people come freshly they receive it. They recognise something and say, “Ah! This is something different! I’d never thought of life like this.” And this is before anything has really been said to them. I’m not talking about every one, of course, but people who have obviously been prepared to come here in whatever way – life circumstances – whatever, their essential request finds something just by coming here. And then they might go on to do courses or they might not. They might go away and work with it or whatever. In a way, that’s up to them.      

I think what I have come to over the years is that this is a special place here and it is a very precious gift. It isn’t at all usual. Bulent said this. He said that what is particular about this place is the combination of a place with a wisdom. The wisdom is embedded or maybe it is the place itself and that almost irrespective of what goes on here. Because this place has been set aside for this purpose. For people to come here and benefit. I believe that they can benefit in quite a number of ways. One of which is attending courses. It is not the only one.  

It might be that someone simply has to come here in order to see something. Something that they need to see. We hope that that thing might lead on to them attending courses. 

But perhaps that’s wishful thinking on our part – maybe that’s not what they need.

What I am certain of is that this place – and, by the way, when I say this place, I mean an arena in which the one essential reality exposes itself in a certain way – in a certain way where the thickness of the veils are not so present. I don’t know how it is in Arabic, but certainly in Hebrew,  Makom is a name of God. So I am not setting this place up in any idolatrous sense. It is simply what I have observed, and I am sure you all have in your own way over the years. 

…and also that it informs. It informs of itself. Of what we need to know. And sometimes, of course, we are deaf, or partially deaf, or studiously deaf, but eventually the message gets through. We say we want to know. Well, what we want to know can inform us. And that is so wonderful to know.   That that is the order of things. That we can’t know anything by dreaming it up for ourselves – that is opinion – that’s our imagination, our conjecture. But if we really want to know we have to let that aside. Let it go. So that we can be receptive to that which wants to be known. And didn’t the One Reality love to be known?  

Yes!  ...and It does.

…so, this isn’t at all the order of what I was going to speak about.  What I was going to say was that 28 years ago Bulent died. 28 years ago to the day. I am eternally grateful to him. There is a manner of showing that which, for me, is holding onto him. And I believe it is time to let him go.   Now please understand this properly. Letting him go means letting my understanding, memories, anecdotes and so on, letting all that go. It is not letting that essential reality go and it is our sincere request that, even if we let go, it does not let go of us. So, what we are letting go of is our belief.   People will say, ‘If we let go of our belief doesn’t that mean the baby goes down the plughole with the water?’ No, there is no such possibility. Because what this – let’s say invocation – but I really mean contemplation, a contemplation which we can engage in is:  

‘There is no god but God’  

And we said it last night in the zikr:  La illaha ilallah  

There is no god but God. There is no reality but the Reality. There is no self but the Self. The only thing that we can let go of – that we can really let go of – is our own creations. Because that which ever is, remains. Of course you will recognise that. That which never was passes away while that which ever is, remains. So this is the One Essential Reality, other than which there is not, which remains. So in letting go of our beliefs, our creations, there is no danger of letting go of that which remains. Because in our letting go, that which remains shows itself. 

This is my stance here. We have had this extraordinary 40 years in which things have been built up. There has been a wonderful creation and now I think it’s time to let it all go and see what remains. That’s what we have been doing over this year. Christopher quoted the meeting of Hudai for the first time with Uftade. This invocation of ‘There is no god but God’ was very dear and precious to Uftade. It was what he travelled by and what he advised his students to travel by.  There is no god but God. And he said that the first part, the negation – which is also part of the affirmation – the negation is best said, sometimes very loudly, because the self is very hard of hearing. So he is saying this not to God because God already knows this, but to the self which thinks it has some sort of existence of its own. And the self is substantiated by all the things that it is attracted to, attached to. Real things as well as imaginary things. So to say this loudly to begin with because it takes a while to cotton on... ‘oh gosh, this means me!’ and then, when this establishes itself – this way of being, this way of contemplation – then it can even out into an equal emphasis on the negation and the affirmation. But to begin with, to begin with, we need to say this really quite strongly. And that’s what I am suggesting now, for this time, at the end of this 40 year period, so we can make a fresh start.  

Bulent said, as Christopher mentioned, that there are four pills we have to take. The first, that we are absolutely certain that there is only one Being in existence. That’s a pill. The second is we need to keep everything clean. Morally, mentally, physically, even financially he said, and I think this applies also to our beliefs. In fact, most of our work here is about our beliefs and what we believe and what we haven’t looked at yet and the wrong things that can really hold us up and trip us up and we would be so much better off when we are without them. 

Obviously there is a fear that in doing this there is going to be nothing left. But it is just that. It’s a fear and a fear is a worry that there won’t be anything there. Well there will be. It is impossible that there be an empty space. Empty of me, empty of my creations of course. And that’s what we hope for. What will remain? The one remaining Reality will remain. And this is an ongoing work and I think there are some times, like now, when we really have to focus and say, ‘Yes indeed!’ 

...so going back to what I said about letting Bulent go, I mean no more than what Abu Bakr said when the Prophet died. Which, if I can remember, ‘Those of you who were wont to worship Mohammed, Mohammed is dead, while those of you who were wont to worship the one God, He is the Living and never dies’.

...so, where are we? Beshara is good news from Him that He is and there is not with Him a thing.   So I believe it is incredibly important that we don’t set up something beside Him. That is, we don’t create a Beshara. Beshara is nothing but the spirit of announcement from Him of His own Reality.  So, it seems to me, that we really need to keep that clean. Because the worst thing that could happen – well I don’t know about the worst thing – but something that could happen is that we create a way, we create a tariqa, we create a fixed system of belief that we all believe in and subscribe to and that is bound to be exclusive. It can’t be anything else. So however much we study and learn there needs to be some sort of an undoing as we go along. So that we can learn afresh and not add on more and more bits to our knowledge. Because then we are in this strange situation of attempting to be almost like God, you know, who knows everything. And we know nothing. So we rely on Him to inform us moment by moment of how He is right now. 

This is something that I alluded to in the letter that I sent to you about the change in name. It is impossible, it is impossible, that in letting go of this name here, at Chisholme, and that is all I am talking about, that that quality will dissipate or fly away or something like that. It is that, that quality will be exactly like the spirit in the body. And it will be covered by this envelope of the body of this place which is the Chisholme Institute, and everything that goes on here will be of Beshara. 

Do you understand? It is a simple relationship of spirit to body. That is all. 

And that this is happening I think is an extraordinary great blessing. I know people will think this is my idea and I’ve gone of the rails and things like that. But I can assure you that is not how it is for me. In the order of things there are coverings. Deliberately so. So that when we see somebody we don’t say, ‘Look, it’s God’. That’s how things are.

There are extraordinary gifts of knowledge and vision and so on and so forth but they are covered up and we have to unpack them and find them.  

When people come here they need to come here very easily – the ones who want to come – we mustn’t put anything in their way. If we put something in their way which is high, or they don’t understand, that’s our responsibility. We want people to come who need to come. The people who will come here don’t necessarily think of themselves as students. We have been absolutely graced by 60 or 70 volunteers this year. I think it was more last year. They came to help. They didn’t come to be helped. Someone said to me the other day, ‘People keep asking me how they can help me and I just want to know what I can do. I want to know how I can help.’ This was a volunteer. This is what is necessary of the people who come here. The volunteers come here with this quality. We mustn't  stop them by giving them the suggestion that they ought to really be students and that in coming here as volunteers they are in some way second class, not quite making the grade. They are the ones who need to come and some of them will discover that they can actually really benefit by studying and maybe then they may think of themselves at students.  This is just an instance but I am sure I don’t need to give you more and more examples of what I am talking about.

Another thing that we had to reconsider – well it’s the same thing actually – our students coming on the 6-month course came to find a more or less fixed body of staff to receive them. And they were taken care of in all kinds of ways. Then it was noticed at the end of a 6-month course that they had been here for the full 6 months and some of them didn’t know how to turn the gas on in the kitchen. Something is wrong here.

...so, we are looking for a different way of doing things which I think is much more of the spirit of the beginning, whereby people who come who are ready and wanting to help, wanting to be of service, immediately get given some responsibility that will be stretching and then we who are here support them in that – or we who aren’t here support them in that – I am including all of you in this. 

…and we have some volunteers who have only been here for quite a short time who have put on this [event] for you, for us, and of course they didn’t know where things were so they had to be told where to find things and things like that. That is the support. But they were the ones – they are the ones – who have put this on. And this, I think, is very much of the spirit of the beginning that I was talking about in that letter. We need to find that. We need to find beginner’s mind.  Yes?  If we haven’t found beginner’s mind then we really need to get out of the way. 

But I think we are all capable of finding that beginner’s mind and welcoming the new!  

Bulent said there is no other purpose in an old man other than being in service to the future.  Well, we are not quite there yet, (some of us) but we are getting there, you know. We need to be in service to the future. And to let people know about this place. Let people know about this provision. Once again, please understand, that in this I am only talking about here. I am not talking about what anyone else has to do in their service which are manifold ways. But here we need to be in service to the future. 

…as for me, I really want to get out of the way for that. I don’t know in what way I am of that. I won’t know until I go. But I do know that this place will inform of itself for those who want to be of service.  

Do you want to hear a few regrets? 
– I wish I had known earlier about what constituted  the ‘brought about nafs’. 
– I wish I had known more about attachment.  Much earlier on. 
– I wish I had understood conjecture. The power of conjecture and what a wonderful friend and what a dangerous misleader.  

It’s all in the Fusus...  
I blame only myself for not having read it properly. The way we can mislead ourselves by wrong supposition, which then lays claim to us and takes us into very dangerous areas.

...and also about mirroring. Being a mirror to one another. The possibility there of real – well, let’s call it ‘unconditional positive regard’. Why not? 

We have been calling it here ‘agreement to someone’. Agreement to you can be completely unconditional, whoever and whatever you are and whatever you are doing, whatever you are saying.  

It is also, I think, what we agree to God. We agree to God being God. And we agree to be the servant. ‘Am I not your Lord?’ ‘Yes, indeed.’ So that’s what I mean by agreement to. And we can be like that with each other. We don’t agree with God. This would be the height of arrogance. Wouldn’t it? ‘I think He was quite right to do that’. It’s as if sharing in His knowledge of the mystery of destiny or something like that, which actually we know nothing about. So we don’t agree with God and we don’t need to agree with each other. But we do need to agree to each other, if we are wise. Because that’s how we are.If we think we have to agree with each other then we get a bigger and bigger body of people who all agree. And how dull! And Reality is not like that, so it is pretense, it is conjecture.

...so, there has been a kind of a labelling of a body of people by this name Beshara, which I think is something very much to be avoided. Because, once again, it’s an appropriation of something that belongs to the Spirit. So I think that is something we really need to be cautious of. And of course we will do it from time to time. Someone asked Marie -–she says it’s happened quite a few times actually – ‘How many other Beshara people are there in Norway?’ It’s that kind of thing. So that’s something to let go of.  

I think it’s probably time to stop talking.  

Can I return to this theme or contemplation of ‘There is no god but God’? I think if we can stay with this over this weekend it will be a sheer delight and I hope we have a wonderful weekend.  

Deep, profound, expansive, joyful.  

Thank you very much for listening.