The Ways of the Heart

“You start at a point beyond religion and go inwards from there.” So said Bulent Rauf, consultant to the Beshara Trust from 1971 to 1987.  His striking and intriguing statement is the starting point for the Beshara online course ‘The Ways of the Heart’, whose aim is to accord appropriate recognition to the one reality that underlies all religious and secular beliefs and to allow for the exploration of inner meanings.

‘The Ways of the Heart’ course is designed to facilitate the education of the deepest aspects of us. We are looking to awaken the identity that the 13th Century poet and mystic Jalāluddīn Rūmī voiced as: “I am not of the East nor of the West. My place is the placeless, my trace is the traceless,” and also when he says: “I am pure Light.”

The aim of this course of study and discussion is to open up a transformation in perspective. It is based on a series of essential themes that are relevant, contemporary and timeless. There is an aspect of ourselves that longs to escape what the scientist John G Bennett memorably called the ‘prison of consciousness’, and to find instead its own total liberation. As Rumi himself put it at the beginning of his epic Mathnawi: “Burst your bonds and be free!”

Students of this online Beshara course are invited to study in the context of the remembrance of the most important point for people who want to taste such freedom; that there is in the whole of existence only one, unique, infinite, absolute existence.

‘The Ways of the Heart’ is for those who want to reach an all-inclusive point of view by knowing themselves fully, in a way that has been hinted at as being from above the apex of a pyramid. This view encompasses both the multiple routes up from the base as well as the apex itself.

At the beginning of the six month residential courses at the Beshara School of Intensive Esoteric Education from which some materials used on this course are drawn, students are reminded: “We are not here to look and search for God; we are committed to seeing God’s vision of Himself.”

You can tell from this that the education of Beshara is about a way of learning that aims to bring out what is within, rather than being an accumulation of ideas or information. We say ‘of Beshara’ because this ancient word, Beshara, includes in its meaning the ‘good news’ of the availability of an education that makes clear the existence and role of the human spirit and repoints humanity to its original universality and singularity.

Self-knowledge is not something new, but is to be found afresh by each and every generation. It is waiting to be discovered in the meanings that have come down to us in the teachings of masters of wisdom throughout the ages. At its core such knowledge is timeless, but it comes to us wrapped up in many different modes of expression due to its appearance in many different times and places.

The course will explore seven themes, and the materials for each theme will be sent three days before the first seminar. Each theme, which lasts 12 days, will be comprised of two Zoom online seminars – one to begin and one to end the theme. Between the two seminars there will be a course forum for discussion and reflection on the particular theme.

Each Zoom seminar will have two facilitators to guide and support the understanding of content and its applicability to everyday life. Participants are urged to fully engage with the materials, contribute to the forum and complete a short essay, set of notes or presentation on one of the course themes.

Zoom is free to join – participants will need to download the Zoom App to participate in the course.

Course material will be shared as a PDF / Word file each week to be studied in preparation for the interactive Zoom seminars, and there will be a private Facebook group for exploring ideas as they arise.