WEATHERALL AND MORE - A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

BY CHRISTOPHER CLARKE

Where did we come from? Why are we here? Did I exist before I was given this body and where will I go next?

Questions like this would fill my childhood mind and I was certain there were answers- but where?

I looked around me and all I saw in my childhood home and in the street outside, in my school and in the woods and fields where we played- offered no solutions to these mysteries.

Cycling with my sister up and down the driveway to our new home meant taking turns and every few minutes I would wait while she took her turn on the circuit.

Each time I waited, I would become aware of the simple fact that I was “here”, an awareness soon forgotten until the next time I had my turn of waiting, when once again my awareness of being there, “now”, came to me - “I wonder if other people know this, that our awareness of being . . here . . now . . is a fleeting thing.”

“I am here, now, in this place”, had a special feeling to it, partly because this experience, by contrast, was lost so easily and it seemed that everyone around me spent most of their time (like me!) in a state of sleep, of forgetting, rather than of awareness, were only half alive. It seemed as though we had to deliberately switch ourselves ‘on’! Years later I would learn, from further experience, that man’s awareness is a fleeting thing, and that he loses his awareness of the world while he is lost in his thoughts, feelings and actions.

In later life these unshared private thoughts came to me when my life was filled with sorrow and unwelcome and unavoidable rejection.

Teachers went on strike and as a teacher, I found myself at home, digging a new garden.

I contemplated relief from the sadness I found in life, by the thought of starting a group to answer all my questions with an invited speaker. I was looking for the key to happiness and possibly greater wisdom.

“Perhaps such a group already exists in nearby Birmingham,” I thought.

I paused my digging and stood wondering whether such a group committed to finding the meaning of life, already existed. If so, then I might find it advertised in the “Personal column” of the Birmingham Evening Mail that I had seen at my parents’ home.

Later, with my mug of coffee in hand I poured over the newspaper and took a break from the digging.

Soon my gaze fell upon the words - “The Psychology of Man’s evolution. Robin Amis (presents?) the common ground of Zen, Yoga, Kabbalah and P.D. Ouspensky” (or something very close to this wording).

Looking for the COMMON GROUND and finding it in my EXPERIENCE. That is what I wanted.

When our young creative head teacher called us into the city to meet with him to discuss the strike, I took the opportunity to visit the Central library and skimmed through several books on the above subjects. Later I decided to attend my first group meeting with Robin. It was the middle of January 1970.

As we were introduced to different modes of attention, I knew that our speaker was working on the right ground for me and Robin later confirmed that he valued practice and experience as a means of discovering truth, as I did myself. In fact, we would listen, occasionally read a book or paper, then practice followed by the experience and later begin to understand. Many of our group of about 12-15 would sense change in themselves and we valued stillness and warmth of heart and pondered the existence of mysteries and forgotten or hidden powers.

Later that year I visited Robin in his home at Castlebar Road, Ealing, near London. We talked about stillness which was too simple for me to grasp straightaway. You simply cannot grasp stillness with an agitated or nervous mind but I was getting there!

I met Robin’s friend Alan Bain (Soho Cabalists) and together with Robin they set about trying to shed a little light in my direction to help me see what they were working with and to what end. I did not realise at the time how significant this time was for us all, but especially for me. I could put very little into words, but I was certain there was something to be discovered and it wasn’t simply about happiness.

Meanwhile, after I had told them that I was a teacher working in a Special School in Birmingham, Robin explained that in order to pursue their line of work it wasn’t necessary to help the poor and needy in the sense of doing ‘good charitable works’! By implication teaching mainstream (normal) children was creditable in its own right. The popular idea was that if you wanted spiritual development or to practice your religion, you needed to serve the poor and needy.

But the pioneering methods and understanding of my head teacher were an inspiration and led me to discover that there was a subject we could call “human development” and I am thinking of the development of ‘being'. Humans were here to develop, both in a worldly sense and in a spiritual sense. But what was the content of spiritual growth and development, I wondered? It certainly wasn’t simply about acquiring more knowledge.

Members of our group were an interesting lot. We would talk over coffee after the meeting, but always Robin tried to steer us away from losing all that energy and awareness we had found.

One day he announced that we had the opportunity to work together on a project. Dan, one of our members, had contact with St Chads, the Catholic Cathedral in the city center. Robin suggested that we spend a day working and eating together. I signed up and about a dozen of us, plus one or two from other groups that Robin led, swept and cleaned the crypt where the homeless had food and shelter.

Of course this exercise was used to practice attention and we were encouraged to work as the tasks demanded without unnecessary actions, words and thoughts. We were learning to control ourselves without the idea of a reward. It made sense to me and I was keen to take it further on a different occasion.

I should also add that ‘remembering’ played an important part. It is easy to forget to practice but remembering is more subtle and effective when we recognise the expanded change of consciousness that occurs at the same time. A change of feeling during the day occurred for me as I relaxed into what I was doing and it became easier then to practice without the resistance of thinking one wanted to be elsewhere.

I soon recognized that Robin had what I now call ‘presence’, though I wouldn’t have used this word at the time. What I mean is that when I was in his company I felt energised and there was a growing stillness inside me. He himself seemed well controlled with deep awareness and a peaceful disposition. Whilst I could also see that occasionally he showed his human side complete with limitations. I felt that providence had dealt me a “better hand” with his friendship and the trust that he evoked in me. 

The first of our workshops, at St Chads, yielded some useful results. Robin outlined what he saw as a gradual shift in people’s attention and inner control, from superfluous activity to a state of calmness, a more peaceful submission to the tasks, a greater willingness to participate and greater self control . A change I think we all recognised. A change which would become more familiar to most of us, as we repeated such activities on later occasions.

Robin seemed interested more in the changes within participants than the activity of charity to others. 

Before long, Robin was offering a more extensive project requiring greater commitment and involving travel. He proposed to take his launch, Aslan, up the Thames towards Oxford. Group members were invited.

We met one night at the end of July 1971 in London to discuss the logistics of the trip and to offer resources and plan our individual responsibilities. I remember transporting Lillian home afterwards with Nicholas, her three year old son and having pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast the following day.

A group of 12 to 15 young people (20 to 30 years of age). signed up” and found tents and bought food but there were a few who seemed to be fellow travellers and were really there only for the fun. It wasn’t long before Robin pulled up to the bank and we were all told to disembark. Robin was not happy with the casual uninvolved manner of some people who behaved more like a group of hippies enjoying a free holiday on the river than those on a quest for spiritual knowledge! He listed many jobs and many ways we could help by coiling ropes not in use, keeping the decks free of personal possessions, offering to cook, clean and even to helm. He was looking for a greater sense of responsibility and mature commitment. But “if folk wanted an easier time” then he could turn around and we could head back to Richmond!

I remember how something inside me balked at the thought of this discipline, more by habit than anything else, for in the next moment I was considering that if I really wanted to break fresh ground in my spiritual journey then it made sense to put myself fully into the part I could play on “The Boat Trip”. So in that moment I made an important decision to give myself fully and with full attention to the task in hand, even to watching my thoughts and feelings and turning away from any that I knew intuitively were out of place on this ‘journey’. I also recognised a growing feeling of love for others which helped!

Each evening, when we had finished eating the main meal of the day we would meet with Robin, often in a “bell tent” and Robin would talk on a particular subject that might last for two or three days. I remember the “hydrogens” and the “cosmoses”. These gave me a greater sense that I was not my body or any material thing but the one who observed all around me and within.

We didn’t reach Oxford but travelled as far as Goring. We visited this picturesque town for shopping and while we waited aboard for the shoppers to return, I recall feeling very still. The whole of life at that time seemed like a meditation and I grew more and more content inside, despite our somewhat primitive accommodation. I recall an image in my mind of what I felt were the final steps of my meditation, that it was like arranging the small ‘lenses’ in a microscope in a straight line and fixed distances one from the other, so that the divine creator would emerge. I would label the ’lenses’: total contentment, perfect stillness of mind, freedom from distraction and no sense of ‘I’ or ego- just total submission. I would later discover “The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali” and then realise that I had made some discoveries like “single-pointed attention”: proof that I could be led by experience before being led by doctrine.

Later that day, we moored Aslan, out of town and on the river bank at the edge of a field with a small church nearby. We planned to have an evening meal and then gather for our usual meeting.

However, it was announced that the meal was going to take longer to cook and so the meeting would be held first of all. I remember the disappointment because I was hungry, but the feeling came to me that I should not part from my inner work, instead I should cultivate a feeling of acceptance and even gratitude for this wonderful two week opportunity rather than fuss over a meal.

We sat facing Robin’s chair in the bell tent. A growing stillness pervaded the damp riverside air and it seemed that we were all in a state of peaceful readiness but not knowing what was really before us.

After sitting and meditating, Robin led us through more of the material on the hydrogens. I have already said how this helped me to find an identity, the real I(?) away from my bodily self and my thoughts.

I fixed my attention solely on his words and the tent seemed to be filled with a pure unruffled stillness. Robin asked if anyone had a Bible with them. Dan passed his copy to Val who found St Paul’s words on love in the First book of Corinthians- “Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels . . .” I Corinthians xii 31.

My breathing grew very steady and shallow as I dived deep into the stillness. Robin said that we might reach a stage, when we could offer words of gratitude into the stillness. I responded in a heart-felt manner and then looking at a tiny blade of grass at my feet I became aware of a rosy glow in the tent as if somewhere there was a fire burning, which of course there wasn’t. The pink glow seemed more real than all the people and all the bags and bottles, chairs and grass. I kept my attention on a small black spot on the blade of grass, inwardly offered myself to the cosmos and then found myself to the rear of my body looking, as it were, through the back of my head and bathed in the rose-gold light. Released from my body, I felt my view-point move back even further and I was looking at rays of golden light spreading outwards and forwards through rose-coloured flames. This must have lasted for about two minutes and all the while I ignored the thoughts that hovered on the edge of my awareness. This had to be the most beautiful experience I had ever had. No longer any doubt, just a beautiful resignation. I remember later feeling that for a few moments I no longer existed as a separate isolated person but had found a unity with the cosmic intelligence.

When the meeting was over Robin said that he would be taking a walk along the river bank and if anyone wanted to share anything with him they could join him. I was the only one who responded and I tried to describe what I had experienced, but I could see it was impossible, but Robin focused on my attempt and together we shared a very precious moment together. He went on to say that he thought he had been a monk in another lifetime. Why this came up I have no idea!

However, the following day I was tired from a misguided excitement. I found that the crying of a small baby in our group was “getting on my nerves”. So I was brought down to earth by our domestic scene. “I shouldn’t be feeling like this,”I thought to myself. “I have received a beautiful gift and out of gratitude I must learn to live with this.” Later I would learn that I can accept my own reaction, my own feelings and pray to be reunited with the cosmos as I prayed for the small child to feel love and peace. It was important for me to realise that the child was also a part of the cosmos and to restore that essential unity in my perspective.

The following day brought a wonderful surprise: I had the beautiful feeling that “I was loved” by everything in creation and that this love was the nature of the cosmos. It welled up into my heart and flooded my mind with a fresh understanding. I beheld a cosmos that was ageless and infinite and loving of everything and everyone and every being that had been created. A cosmos that made all our petty issues and unhappiness dissolve into insignificance. What I was experiencing did not make intellectual sense. It was life itself, love itself.

Our return downstream led to further discoveries. While our boat was moored alongside Cookham churchyard, one or two of us, sad to see so much litter spoiling the small meadow and with Robin tucked away on board with his typewriter, decided to pick up the litter and convey it to a nearby waste bin. We worked voluntarily and silently for at least an hour. I began to reflect on what had become a change in my outlook and experience of everything. I felt very peaceful, there was nothing I especially wanted. There came a flash of understanding- “ Everything is possible. How could this be? I just knew this was true.” I kept this to myself, but later that evening, Robin had been reading his latest paper in which were the very same words that had come to me- “ Everything is possible.” Another miraculous moment! However it would be difficult to explain to others what was meant by this. It had something to do with context and the spiritual goals we set.

A week later, a final meeting on the “Boat Trip” with Robin in which he “read” Tarot cards, led to him saying to me- “I imagine your ideas have changed quite a bit and things are beginning to make more sense now?” And he went on to add a helpful “tit bit” - “But you don’t know the devil in you yet!”

We were a little behind our schedule. Of course there was no schedule, but I had arranged to meet my wife at a hotel in Scotland where we used to go pony trekking together and Andy, a student friend, needed to be in Newcastle the day before. So I agreed with Robin that I would catch a bus from Chertsey to Robin’s home in Ealing to collect my car, before returning to the boat where Andy and I left our good friends and headed north.

Soon after our departure I found myself drifting mentally among the thoughts and memories enjoyed during the two weeks of the trip. I had taken some personal satisfaction in what “had been achieved” before a flash of something which felt very unpleasant, perhaps even evil, passed through my mind and I realised that perhaps the devil Robin had spoken about was loose in me and with some humility I prayed for forgiveness, conscious of my own potential for error and disturbance. “Now the work has really begun,” fifty years ago!

Following the Boat trip and my later holiday in Scotland I returned to our group meetings in Birmingham. I recall Robin was absent from the meeting and had sent word that he would need help and support financially if he were to continue. I could see this was a test for all of us and it was followed by his sharing plans concerning the purchase of a large property in the west of Gloucestershire.

Eventually we learned that Robin and Lillian would be getting married in the Spring. First though, Robin sought a commitment from members in each of the groups. There were those like myself who were eager to attend weekend retreats we would call “Working Weekends”. But there were also those who felt that the weekend retreats would take energy from the weekly meetings. The latter folk tended to avoid travel or have difficult circumstances. Robin asked for a commitment of one weekend per month, but there would eventually be a second alternating weekend. With a family at home, only occasionally did I attend a second weekend, but was always present on the first. 

The Wedding was a beautiful day with the bride dressed in a wedding garment, created in 1972 and designed by Lillian herself. After the service some of the group members provided the Wedding Breakfast at Castlebar Road, Ealing, Robin’s home. Later that Day, Robin and Lillian headed for the West Country where they stayed in Wells for a while and visited one of Robin’s favourite Abbeys with its famous scissor arch.

One more Working Weekend at Castle Barr road saw Robin’s home, given a face lift by an eager group of decorators. On this occasion service was not followed by a prepared meeting and our Birmingham group arrived home late on a Sunday evening- a sacrifice for those with a family, like myself. This was a matter we discussed among ourselves: “How much could Robin ask of people not sworn to the rules of a monastery?” This was after all a Fourth way initiative. But Robin talked over the matter and I felt there was a fair understanding and also that he wanted us to develop commitment which meant sometimes “sailing close to the wind, domestically!” But we continued to question this subject.

Following the wedding, Robin and Lillian held an open day at the large country house. The house was returned to its original name of Weatherall and was about two hundred years old, perhaps a little older. Over the front door was a specially sculpted and painted “All seeing eye”. I think this suggests divine protection associated with many different religions and spiritual paths. The eye seemed impersonal and radiating from its centre were numerous rays of light. It reminded me of the event I had witnessed in the tent.

The site was long and narrow. The road from Coleford, our nearest town, ran along the length of the site. To the front of the house was a long ornamental garden and lawns with flower beds which would draw Lillian's artistry for many days to come. At the rear of the house we eventually started a vegetable garden and there were also small barns and outbuildings that eventually housed a pottery, photographic studio and a woodturning workshop.

It was the deep and ever-deepening stillness that drew me inwards. The beauty and unsophisticated charm of the garden, the rustic character of the workshops and the brick yard outside, the ecclesiastical stone arch leading from the kitchen yard to the garden gave an almost monastic look to the rear of the house.

Inside, the house was comfortable, well worn, very friendly and inviting. We added an Aga cooker to the kitchen and a large, very solid wooden table and also another folding table. This was where we cooked and ate our meals and also prepared fruit and vegetables for storage or freezing. There are many happy memories associated with this room as well as lessons learnt. For example I had very little cooking experience and with perhaps just the two of us we found ourselves learning very quickly how to cook for 20 to 30 people. I remember the day I tried roasting carrots like potatoes! Robin enlightened me.

Whereas some preferred to augment their experience by reading and the further use of their intellect through discussion, I found that the practical tasks, especially meetings with Robin, meditation and the sharing of space with others, as well as the household and outdoor chores, were all I really needed or wanted, in order to feel I was growing and developing experientially.

I seemed to do much of my learning through intuition: I would have a feeling about something, such as how to use odd moments of time to find and dive into times of stillness. It was as if Weatherall had been tailored to provide the right conditions for experience and growth. Although there was the opportunity to learn the language of a system such as Ouspensky’s Fourth Way or the Sanskrit and Advaita Vedanta of HH Shankaracharya, of Jyotir Math in Northern India (1953 - 1980)both of which I followed, but I really favoured my own intuitive exploration of situations and experiences first of all, but to tread a doctrinal path afterwards. It seemed as though what I needed was already within me and my task was one of recognition, remembering and attention. Most important of all was the practice of attention and what we would call watchfulness today.

I felt very much at home and I know most of my friends did too. These were from the Birmingham group and included Ros, Peter and Alan as regulars and from time to time others would join our weekend group. We travelled by car meeting after work on a Friday evening and would reach Coleford between 8 and 8.30 pm in time for a meeting with Robin to do some of the planning for the weekend's activities.

For the most part we slept with our own sleeping bags on a mattress on a carpeted floor. I never felt concerned by the primitive nature of our circumstances, such as going out in the middle of a cold December night to an outside toilet when I slept in a wing over the craft workshops.

There was a special feeling that came with remembering oneself, a feeling that was part of the Weatherall scene. A feeling that comes to me now many years later, impossible to put into words that sprang from the people, our commitment and of course the place - a true spirit of place. To be there is to practice, is to feel the stillness and the presence of many souls that supported our work.

We would meditate together in the living room at about 7.00 am, before sitting down to breakfast in the kitchen at about 8.00.

On Saturdays we would meet again in the living room together with those who either arrived in the early morning or who came perhaps for only a single day. The latter arrangement was one Robin liked to avoid. We discussed the details of the days’ work then we started. I enjoyed the work outside which initially was re-decoration and repair. I recall learning how to rainproof and re-tile a lean-to roof outside the workshops. Collecting firewood from local ditches and waste land was a favourite.

Whatever we did, the instruction was to give full attention and pause regularly to savour the stillness both within and without and not to squander time and energy on idle conversation. Perhaps a recent ‘meeting paper’ provided a helpful quotation. Collecting firewood, though it seemed a softer or less demanding option did not provide the challenge that one felt in the kitchen. Here, every aspect of work would be tested on the plates of one's friends. Rosy cheeked and perhaps a little stressed at times, I learned a great deal in the kitchen, especially how to move a little faster than my habitual self learned at home!

With the passage of time, we would each take on more and more responsibility and so Robin might ask what Ros was doing in the vegetable garden or ask me what our plans for maintenance, repair or decoration of the house were, but be involved with colour choice or the sighting of the Marley building as a workshop.

I recall there were particular themes for both group and weekend meetings. I remember that Robin felt the importance of “Emotional Education”, lacking in mainstream education today. Robin produced several papers on this subject.

While on retreat we also studied the early chapters of the Atmabodha. I would later learn that the instrument which emerged in me while engaged in this study, we later called the Nous. In fact Nous and Buddhi are both words which relate to the discerning mind or intellect either in the western system in Greek or the eastern Advaita vedanta in Sanskrit.

On a three week retreat I remember Lillian offering art classes during the evening. This was a special event that drew on the peaceful energies that were gathering in one’s nervous system!

Our Needlepoint Tapestry and Applique making groups were often to be seen on the carpeted floor of the living room. This room was particularly quiet while half a dozen or more people carefully worked on a design of Lillian’s. Together with Kafe Fassett, they produced a number of wall hangings, gowns and household articles like cushions and table mats.

There was also a pottery with a kiln and produce, together with a limited number of woodturning items were placed “on sale” in the shop. Initially the shop was a downstairs room, but later this became a cafe for tea, coffee, cakes and biscuits. The shop then moved to the quarry.

So the Weatherall site also included an old quarry and I recall that it was my job to draw up a plan for sighting a Marley building which I helped to purchase. Eventually, Lillian used part of this space as a painting studio. However, before this, Lillian was often to be seen painting in the garden. I remember the orange nasturtiums featured in some of her work and at Christmas time, the snow berries. The sight of her work around the house and in the studios really lifted the spirits and brought a lively colour and design inspired by her skill and imagination.

But to those who came regularly to the house for the weekends, it wasn’t a holiday. At times we had to deal with stress. I recall I needed to complete my degree at Birmingham University at the same time as supporting a small daughter in her first year of life (and a sick mother).

During the retreats I would sometimes collect Robin from the station at Lydney. This was something I used to do when he attended our weekly group meeting in Birmingham. But on one occasion while we were leaving Lydney rail station Robin explained how he was kept awake at night by the distant sound of machinery whirring. We hunted around for the sound which Robin heard faintly, but I did not. The message here was that Robin was feeling stressed by the necessity for working to support the bills at the house. Robin or rather the house was supported by regular subscriptions, Lillian’s work and initially the work of Kafe, but the latter was to leave the workshops (now called “Weatherall Workshops”) in order to pursue his own career independently.

Eventually Robin began to think seriously about separating his work from that of the house and our groups. As well as the financial strains of paying the bills, there was the question of what Robin might do professionally and the direction he might turn in his spiritual journey without the groups.

In short, Robin was keen to pursue a Christian slant in his spiritual work. Whilst he continued to receive and employ material with a focus on Advaita Vedanta, from The Study Society, our spiritual work at our weekends had now turned to prayer and the ‘prayerful attitude’ was also a feature of Study Society material, probably because His Holiness Shantanand Saraswati, had been asked to say something about prayer at one of His audiences.

At one weekend, Robin had reported how he and Lillian had met (the now late) Metropolitan Anthony, after a Sunday liturgy at the Russian Orthodox Church, Ennismore Gardens in London. They had asked him about cultivating a good prayerful attitude and as a result a number of us started to read “The Way of a Pilgrim” by R.M.French (for the Jesus Prayer) and also Metropolitan Anthony’s “School for Prayer” and “Meditations on a Theme”.

At Weatherall, Robin invited us to a follow-up meeting with the Metropolitan at Ennismore Gardens and a few of us attended. Fairly late on a weekday evening we made the car journey after work and were pleasantly surprised when M.A. himself greeted us on the doorstep and ushered us past the open door of a living room. I sneaked a view of this room adorned with rich velvet and gold tassels before the Metropolitan pointed out that we were instead to descend a staircase into a place closer to God - his cellar! Yes, he was right: I felt God’s presence more strongly in the humble surroundings of a brick built cellar, shared with a large table and many chairs and the good old fashioned heating boiler.

What a privilege to feel the warmth of this great man and to be led into the stillness of prayer. I learned in a moment that a God of love beckons all of us to prayer and resolved to keep the spirit of prayer alive where I had first felt it, in my heart. “Head and heart”, both needed our attention. Perhaps this was the start of “emotional education”?

Another “mystical” experience followed this :

At Weatherall, one quiet weekend, Robin called us into the living room where we stood in a circle and held hands. We closed our eyes just as Robin did and like him became very still. Suddenly, he called out “Yesus” and some strong feeling, a conscious impulse hit the air and many of us were shocked into a deeper stillness or else were confused by the event!

At a later meeting, Robin discussed the idea that in order to release himself from the time spent with groups and retreats, our groups might be referred to The Study Society for inclusion with their groups, after all we had been receiving and benefitting from their material for many years. There was a mixed response. Firstly, everyone appreciated that Robin and Lillian had been playing host and hostess and which meant a great sacrifice in their lives and also that we were not able to give them the financial support that was needed to keep the house going. Most of us were under 30 years of age and people like myself had a family to support. Secondly we were also sad at the thought of losing the weekends which had meant so much to many of us and where we had made great strides in our understanding and with our personal development.

Those who were most supportive of the closure of Weatherall, were those living closer to London. People like me who might have to drive from Birmingham, also looked forward to a wealth of learning opportunities. Perhaps the atmosphere of Weatherall which we treasured so much, might be replaced with the different, but equally valued atmosphere of Colet House.

Robin had discussions with Dr Francis Roles (head of the Society for the Study of Normal Psychology and appointee of P.D.O.). Dr Roles invited Robin, Lillian, his wife Joan and two or three appointed leaders of Robins’ groups that included myself, Steve Wood and I think possibly Kate, as well as Lord and Lady Allan, to a small evening meeting where Dr Roles discussed with each of us the work of the society, of P.D.O. and H.H. in India and so on. He was trying to get to know us individually and collectively. I remember the Doctor asking Robin how he would describe his experience of Paramatman (the Universal Self of Advaita Vedanta). Robin replied “I feel it as Presence)”. This was the first time I remember that word being used. It was important to me as it described what I experienced and for Robin experience had been central to our work.

On a separate occasion we learned that Lord and Lady Allan, had been invited to a Weatherall weekend. Lord Allan deputised under Dr Roles. But this would be a less formal arrangement and first we thought they would need to stay overnight but they arrived earlier, had an evening meal with us and then L.A. took the meeting. The room was full!

Because Lord and Lady Allan attended the audiences with H.H. regularly in India, L.A. was able to describe this process and give us insights into their relationship with the Realised man (H.H.).

It was L.A. who initiated me into meditation in 1970 but only later did I realise this. Instead we chatted informally over a cup of coffee after the meeting was over and he told me that they couldn’t leave too late because he would be reading the lesson in church the following day. This led to us discussing the inner truths of the Bible because I had asked him if he sees connections between biblical text and Work knowledge. “Of course, all the time,” was his reply. I realise now that this was fundamental but the fact was new to me at the time.

If I had to choose what was the most striking aspect of my time at Weatherall (1972 to 1979) the most remembered and enduring memory or feeling, then I would say the stillness of our eating times and the atmosphere of the house, the stillness, the presence within house and garden as well as the meetings with Robin.

It was through Robin, his example and as a role model, that I was guided and grew as a person, as a seeker. He was not the most perfect human being of course but he was determined to reach out for the revealed truth and go wherever it took him and take others with him.

I remember his favorite quotes like: “No compromise with truth.”

Robin taught me how to explore and discern the truth around me, by use of the nous (formerly called the buddhi when I studied advaita vedanta at Colet House)

And - “The truth shall set you free.” From the Gospel of Thomas I believe.

So Weatherall became a place where people like me completed our “real” education (quote of Robin), in the sense of having a measure of self knowledge and knowing how to complete this in the world; also a place outside ourselves as well as within ourselves where we could meet the Divine free from the constraints and misdirection of the world, but also a place in nature where we could feel and truly meet the spirit of inner truth and outer joy and happiness. This assemblage of inner revelation, of inner focus set in an awareness of the outer world, was replicated by Lillian in her concentric nasturtium flower theme- “Homage to Blake”, a Needlepoint Wall Hanging which was featured in an Exhibition at Frances of Piccadilly, London, April - June 1974.

Towards the end of our time at Weatherall, Robin asked a number of us to meet with him in the quarry where we sat and savoured the stillness, away from the activity and buzz of the house. I suppose it was natural that one or two should raise objections and complain about the divisiveness of this arrangement. I suppose one might feel this if one brings into the house fashionable attitudes of protest and self-pity, picked up from the world, though no one was excluded from the stillness of the place. Robin repeated this arrangement and sometimes there were new faces. I had already discovered on the Boat Trip, that ‘ours was not to reason why but to accept and enjoy’.

So we helped Robin and Lillian pack up and move to a smaller house near Stroud in Gloucestershire. This was the barn and outbuildings of Avening Park, which needed renovation but would provide them with a rural prospect - Lillian with a barn studio - Robin with an office.

Robin continued his interest in a Christian approach, especially with Orthodoxy. Soon they were to attend the Pan Orthodox Church in Canterbury Road, Oxford where they met and talked with Bishop Kallistos (Timothy Ware). Oxford was about an hour’s drive from Avening and soon they were to arrange with the Bishop, services nearer home in Cheltenham, hiring an Anglican church for the purpose.

Meanwhile, Robin also held meetings with the leaders of his original groups of Birmingham, Cheltenham, Bath, Bristol, London, Robertsbridge and Hawkhurst. In fact, these were reduced to about 4 and later 3 groups. I looked after Birmingham and Cheltenham groups. We met on Thursdays and alternated the meeting venues.

Following their move away from Weatherall to Avening, I began to wonder how we might all stay in touch with them both, now that we no longer had the larger retreat venue. At the time I was deputy head of an Anglican Methodist Church Primary school. I looked out for vacancies for headships in Gloucestershire and eventually discovered that there was such a vacancy in Avening, just 5 minutes from Robin and Lillian’s new home!

I applied and got the job! I had always wanted to be associated with a Cotswold village school. So things came together for me.

It was the end of December 1979 and while my family were arranging a move of home, I lived with Robin and Lillian during the weekdays. This went on for about three months before my family were able to make our move south to Nailsworth, just 3 miles from Avening.

At the end of the school day I would often visit Robin and Lillian for a cup of tea and to hear Robin’s latest esoteric and Orthodox discoveries! I also remember enjoying visits to Lillian's art studio.

During this time, Robin asked me to liaise between himself and the group takers. He did not want to lose touch with his friends but he was not in a position any longer to support them. So I arranged weekend meetings once or twice a month, hiring my school for the purpose. An afternoon meeting with two or three friends after lunch, gave us the opportunity to discuss the material our groups received from Colet House (Study Society). Then in the evening we held a bigger meeting for about ten to twelve of us. Between these two meetings we would walk up to The Coach House and spend an hour with Robin and Lillian. This would enable Robin to pass on ideas and material from his researches on Mount Athos and of an emerging esotericism.

During the weekdays I continued to play audience to Robin’s researches and his creativity. This was a great privilege. I remember his apprehension at planning his first trip to Mount Athos, and I was soon to share the depth and stillness of Gregoriou and the Holy Mountain through his words and depth of being and also a first postcard! I longed to travel there but family and school made that unthinkable.

Eventually Robin and Lillian moved to Stroud and this was where I heard from Robin about his discovery of Boris Mouravieff and one or two expressions like constatation. As always my friends and I put “experienced truth” ahead of everything else. Ours was not a purely academic approach, nor had it ever been at Weatherall and before. So there was some caution here.

At about this time, Robin and Lillian made contact with the Greek Cypriot community in Cheltenham and introduced the Liturgy with the support of Bishop Kallistos. After moving to this beautiful town, I became head of a larger primary school there and eventually took over the job of Parish secretary from Lillian.

Before this, I had decided to convert to Greek Orthodoxy and was privileged to receive tutorials from Bishop Kallistos for an hour or so every other week for a whole year at his home in Oxford. An interesting approach which I found enabled me to work with remembering and attention.

When Robin and Lillian moved to Massachusetts, I continued to focus on this approach of devotional church life and weekday group study with our Cheltenham Study Society group.

I spent 25 years with Robin, interrupted later by their visit to the United States during the late nineties . So Robin had offered a transfer to the leadership of the Study Society and our role was to continue the study of advaita vedanta (and for some of us PDO).

In addition my personal journey reflected the Advaita Vedanta in unique ways. I had been serving as House Manager at Colet House for the Study Society from 2000, this was an unpaid position but with rent free accommodation at the House. I found it very rewarding as I met a variety of people representing different expressions of the Work. But after two years I wanted to experience a “full time” community. Following my meeting with a nature educator and founder member of a community in the Sierra Nevada California, I visited and subsequently joined the founding community for a year and then was invited to teach at an Ananda School in Portland, Oregon where I taught young children.

Finally I moved to Ananda Europa, Assisi, Italy. It was during this latter phase (2005 to 2010) that I met up again with Robin in Bristol. I didn’t immediately follow the approach to Mouravieff until after Robin's passing, but the melding of the two approaches (Ananda and Orthodoxy) led to a deeper and more rounded understanding of my spiritual life. I should add that Ananda had been founded by a close disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda and currently holds about 6 or 7 communities worldwide.

But I was overjoyed when Lillian sent me material relating to “The Philokalia - the Prayer of the Heart” Recordings as these confirmed my view that self remembering, nepsis or watchfulness and practicing presence were all closely related and I believed in accessibility and universality of experience.

Just before Lillian passed away she said to me- “You must have known Robin before I did?” I think that was correct, but I had never given thought to this before. 

Then she asked: “What did you think when you heard that Robin and I were to get married?” I thought about it and found I could cast my mind back to this time. So, what did I think?

“What a catch!” I said. Lillian despite her fragility lying in bed with only a few days of her earthly life left to her, laughed and laughed and later she would ask me to repeat this.

Then she added- “Do you remember how we made a Chocolate cake for the Capricornians?” She and I were born only five days apart and there were a number of Capricornians among our regulars at Weatherall. ‘Thank you Lillian for reminding me of this’. Perhaps we can become children again as we prepare ourselves for heavenly realms? Where the heart is strong there is no need for rules.

These beautiful moments spent together in our past, especially our reflections of Weatherall bring us all together in this moment now and we are there together again.

During the Boat Trip, on that one occasion of the special meeting in the bell tent, it seemed that I was a light and in the center of a magnificent flower of flaming petals. I have felt a little of this, several times since. I would become still, deeply still, no real thoughts, no desires but a still contentment. As traces of “I” vanished away, there would be a pink glow in my awareness but out of reach of personality’s thinking. Any personal thoughts or the intrusion of an ego, then this light simply vanishes and one is left with a “personal world”.

The enemy of sacredness is taking things for granted, for then we don’t really see, we don’t hear and we don’t feel, we are instead blind and dead to the world.

A permanent state of gratitude is an open door to our sense of the sacred.

A personal memoir by Christopher Clarke, Bristol, UK, November 22, 2021

Copyright 2021 by Christopher Clarke and Praxis Research Institute, Inc.