Preface to the 3rd Edition

On re-appraising this book for the new edition, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that very little revision was required and that the original insights and suggestions still carried weight and validity. The thoughts I shared with spiritual seekers 20 years ago are just as relevant to those seeking to understand themselves today. All I have done is to fill out certain passages here and there in order to clarify an issue and make the subject more comprehensible to the reader.

Before publication, my editor at Element Books was most hesitant about including the chapter on the Lost Years of Jesus, perhaps fearing it was too controversial. But in the event, it turned out to be the one section that the majority of reviewers and readers appeared to find most fascinating. No knowledgeable biblical scholars have ever pointed out any flaws in these discoveries. I had expected a welter of indignation, but over the years following publication I received only two letters castigating me for attempting to uncover the truth, coming from lay-Christians who had evidently not deeply investigated the subject and who evidently preferred to adhere to childhood beliefs.

Since the first edition, many other biblical researchers have written complete and brilliant books on the subject which are in accord with my findings (one produced by my original publisher!) and fleshing out the bare bones of my previous researches. Therefore I have added some extra relevant information in the light of recent discoveries (in moderation though, as otherwise this chapter would have had to become a whole book!)

I have not found anything to retract. And judging by the heart-warming and grateful letters I continue to receive from readers worldwide, there is still sufficient inspiration here to warrant a further edition.

Foreword

To allay any fears that my good reader may have, that because I am known mostly to dress in muted shades of orange, I must be touting for some dodgy pseudo-Hindu cult or other, let me say at the outset that I do not belong to any cult (and never have) nor do I proselytise for this or that particular Path. My way has always been to remain free to explore everything this mysterious universe has to offer us. Therefore I have always sought to assist others to open themselves by whatever means or spiritual practice most suited to their own natures.

My tendency is to see everything from all sides and to attempt a global understanding of spiritual life. How can I know the whole if I only view existence through the narrow slit of a single tradition? If we are strongly attached to any one philosophy or religion, especially to the extent where we are prepared to fight for it—either physically or verbally—then we can know without doubt that we are in bondage to illusion. We are fighting over castles in the air. Religious belief born of social conditioning is not a sound basis for spiritual knowledge or understanding.

Those chained hand and foot to cultural concepts can make but little progress along the Path. At best they may shuffle along only to the destination—or unobtainable style of ‘heaven’—as designated by the keepers of that Path.

It is better to adhere lightly to any one system of belief, like a butterfly to a flower—as a mystic or a yogi adheres to the world, knowing that he may be gone from it at any moment.

Since my own awakening to the spiritual path, I have spent all the years of my life absorbing the understanding of Christian mystics, Jewish rabbis, Sufi dervishes, Sikh saints, Hindu gurus, Zen masters, Buddhist sages, Chinese contemplatives and many others, including simple Izangoma (African ‘wise-doctors’), shamans and native American medicine-men whom I count among my friends. In this way one gains a sense of universal spirituality.

I embrace the essential aspects of all traditions and also the non-traditional paths, but without being attached to any of them. Whatever gives me Light I carry with me while it serves me well. But whichever way one follows, if it is one with ‘heart’ and open to all other paths, then one develops a spiritual discrimination or awareness, which prevents one from being deludedly ‘taken in’ by any cultishly restrictive organisation.

Although my heart may be moved by Jesus the Christ, it remains unmoved by ‘Churchianity’. I may try to follow the Noble Precepts of the Buddha without feeling any need to be a Buddhist. Having lived among the Sufi dervishes, I may follow their Path of the Heart without adopting the Muslim faith. Although I may have been given initiation (several times) as a Hindu monk in India, and endowed with a title and the saffron robe, to consider myself as a ‘swami’ (being equivalent to an ordained ‘priest’ of an established order) would be too confining for my freedom of growth. For when one accepts a traditional role one is pressurised by too many seekers who feel that a teacher must conform precisely to what their needful image of a guru says he should be. Besides, when I came to realise that the word swami indicates ‘He who is One with the Lord’, I was too abashed to take such a title on myself, having then only paddled in the shallows of such a relationship.

I see myself neither as a ‘swami’ nor as a ‘New Age’ teacher. I incline more towards the notion of the ‘No Age’, seeking the practices and teachings which are suitable for any age of the world, being immersed in the contemplation of the eternal verities. Perhaps what I call the ‘Zen-templative’ way of life comes closest to my heart—that contemplative and aesthetic mode of being cultivated by the Zen monks of Japan—but with more warmth and laughter and less severity.

He who takes his path too seriously is unlikely to arrive anywhere. Beware of grim-faced Gurus.

The ochre or saffron robe as worn in India indicates that the wearer is (theoretically) ‘one who has given up worldly pursuits and is concentrating on the Godly life alone’. In olden days when criminals were due to be executed, they were dressed in these mud-coloured garments (known as geru) to distinguish them from the other prisoners before they got the chop. So it was that the yogis adopted the use of the same coloured rags to denote that they too were ‘cut off’ from the life of the world. And this became a symbolic gesture universally adopted among the Eastern ascetics.

It is interesting to note, that of recent years, through scientific research, it has been determined that the visual effect of this colour induces a contemplative consciousness—a ‘cosmic coincidence’ if ever there was one! I have found this to be so myself and for this reason I continue to wear the colour. But that does not make me any more than a sadhu (a wandering truth-seeker) in this world, slowly stripping myself of psychological baggage along life’s long and winding road. Thus my ‘Way of Unlearning’ is a simple ‘Sharing of the Inner Quest’ with fellow-travellers on the Way Within.

Having externally combed the dusty highways and byways of the world for many years, sifting the sands of many spiritual cultures for guidance on the inner way, I have inevitably come to the same conclusion as the renowned Zen professor, D. T. Suzuki, when he says that: “Indian metaphysics are the deepest in the world, and their dialectics are incomparable. All nations of the world have to bow down to the Indians in this respect.” And this from one of the world’s greatest proponents of the enlightening Zen philosophy! Many other scriptural scholars throughout the world, after making exhaustive comparative studies, have also come to echo his sentiments.

In my own researches, I found that the scriptures of most ‘popular’ religions of the world, whilst being worthy in their own way, were unsatisfying, as they all danced around the spiritual life on a relatively superficial level, suitable mainly for the masses of mankind. Doubtless they all pointed in the same direction and gave a few hints along the path, but having preserved only a few fragments of the Master’s mystical teachings, for a more introspective and serious seeker of truth, none got down to the real ‘nitty-gritty’, brass tacks level as far as methods for self-harmony and Self-realisation were concerned. Eventually I found it was only the Hindu and Buddhist texts which really explored in depth every aspect of the spiritual path and showed the way—all the way—to the Source: or at least, as close to arrival as any text can show.

From time immemorial, the sages of India have been known to have delved deepest of all into the psycho-spiritual nature of human existence, and have left a practical legacy unequalled in any other culture for achieving Oneness with the Absolute. Such scriptures prescribe the perfect path for every type of temperament and at every level of development. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if my writings naturally have an Eastern flavour here and there—like a whiff of curry in an English street.

But because the Sanskrit language of the seers and yogis of India contains the most extensive and subtle spiritual vocabulary this planet can boast, one is able to enter into levels of spiritual profundity for which we in the West do not even have concepts let alone words! And one Sanskrit term often needs a whole paragraph, or even a complete book to explain its subtle ramifications. However, although not being a Sanskrit grammarian, where necessary I have done my best to restate whatever intuitive understanding I have gained of the ancient wisdom in a way which I hope is absorbable by the seeker of today.

As many of these chapters were originally written as single articles for spiritual and yoga journals, there are a few places where inevitable explanatory repetitions occur, when a key concept or word had to be qualified to make the article complete and understandable in itself. Whilst rewriting and enlarging the manuscripts for this book I have tried to eradicate such duplications where I could, except where it would obviously destroy the flow of the narrative, on the understanding that it can sometimes be helpful for the same things to be repeated in different ways in order that a tricky concept may be more easily grasped, or intuitively ‘seen’. I hope readers will bear with me in this matter, as this means they may also dip into the book where they will.

However, there is something of a sequential thread throughout the narrative and a consecutive step by step reading of the chapters will assist in a better comprehension of the themes.

In my Sharing of the Quest I have tried to instil a little of the mystic’s eye-view of the universe as a cosmic continuum from the Heart of All through all our hearts: for it is essentially the intuitive knowledge of the reality of this situation which has been the living experience of mystics in every age of the world. And on ‘bringing through’ their wholistic vision of existence, the mystic masters of every culture have spoken in a way which opened up the lives of millions.

On whatever Path we awaken to the spiritual life—in this war-weary and confusing world—we would be extremely foolish to deny the wisdom of any Paths other than our own. On the contrary, we should hail with joy and gratitude the fact that there are fellow-travellers on the Inner Journey, whose teachings may clarify what we misunderstand along our chosen way. For no matter by what road another travels, he is still steadily entering into the Divine, through his own level of understanding of the workings of the heart. So let us walk awhile beside him on his way, and let each support the other in his chosen faith.

There are those—and many—who need to walk the ‘safe road’ through the spiritual life, supported by the standards of their inherited tradition. No blame. But if they can also be open to the wisdom of other ways, so much the better for us all. The less divisive cultural ‘religiosity’ there is in the world, the greater the chance there is for seekers everywhere to awaken to a universal spirituality. And by this I do not mean a universal religion (heaven forbid!) but a universal sense of comradeship in the recognition of each other’s efforts on the Way Within.

For the hardy few—the spiritual heroes of the world—who have no faith bonded to any fold, then the clear-eyed way of the Universal Mystic is open—the way of the Open Hand, the Open Heart and the Searching Single Eye.

If you can walk a little along this way with me—then welcome to this book.

MUZ MURRAY