40 Day Retreat Course
October 16 – November 26, 2017
This fully immersive forty-day retreat allows you the chance to uncover answers to the universal questions that existence poses.
Course Description
People are essentially extremely beautiful, they are a hidden treasure; this hidden treasure is there to be discovered by each person – the hidden treasure within themselves. That discovery is completely transforming…
Peter Young, Principal at Chisholme 1987–2015
Knowing your self ~ Loving the other ~ Serving life itself
Who are you really? How can you really know what it means to be human? These fully immersive forty-day retreats allow you the chance to uncover answers to the universal questions that existence poses. It will be an exploration of your self, of your very being, and of the nature of your relationships with others and the world. Clearly you owe your life to what the world gives you – but is the world offering you more than you are yet able to receive? And what should you do, what do you owe in return?
The inquiry you will engage in is based on a deceptively simple premise, the premise that there is a unity to all existence.
Uniquely, Chisholme is a school without teachers. There are facilitators who will guide you but they will not tell you what to believe: what’s right or what’s wrong. The course is based on a balanced programme of four elements: group study, meditation, work and devotional practice.
The study is based around six themes:
- Beginning at the Beginning
- The One and the Many: Being and Consciousness
- The Human Reality and Experience
- Relationships
- The Way
- Love and Beauty
The works of masters from various wisdom traditions, such as Ibn ‘Arabi, Meister Eckhart and Lao Tsu, as well as more contemporary contemplatives including Einstein and Adyashanti are included in the study material.
Two periods of meditation each day – morning and evening – will be either silent or guided mindfulness meditations. The guided sessions will be led by trained mindfulness practitioners. During work periods you might be cooking, helping to prepare for meals, working in the organic garden or around the woodland, or cleaning and preparing rooms for guests. These sessions are time for digestion and integration of what has been explored during study, conversation and meditation. Whatever activities you are engaged in, work is an integral part of this retreat where opportunities for service can be fully experienced in the contemplative environment of the house and estate.
Group devotional practice in the evenings consists in the invocation of names of the one and all-inclusive reality. This is called zikr (remembrance), where from the perspective of unity, our individual participation is a part of the whole. Other evenings will be spent in silent contemplation with fellow students with a time afterwards to share insights and questions.
Booking & Fees
Fee: £1300 (deposit: £200).
Closing date for applications: 15 September, 2017
Bursaries:
A 90% bursary will be offered to one qualifying student to complete the 40-day retreat (i.e. the holder of the bursary will pay only £140). If you wish to apply for this bursary please contact info@chisholme.org
Reimbursement:
If for any reason you have to leave a course early you will be reimbursed at £28 per day not used.
The 40-day retreats will run subject to sufficient student numbers. In the event that a course is unfortunately cancelled, your deposit will be refunded in full. Confirmation that the course is running will be sent shortly after the closing date for applications.
Applications:
For more information and to receive an application form please contact secretary@chisholme.org
or call +44 (0)1450 880 215
Course / Event location
Chisholme Institute, Chisholme House, Hawick TD9 7PH, UK.
Rumi & Ibn 'Arabi
The works of two great poets, mystics and thinkers from the 12th & 13th century – Rumi and Ibn ‘Arabi – are favourites for study in depth, as they offer a comprehensive, multi-faceted view that addresses both the unseen world and the visible world as one. The shifting points of view that both these writers freely and thoroughly adopt break up our pre-established patterns of thought and their texts invite students to radically new perspectives.
Students by studying mystical texts from other traditions can learn to correlate ideas, and discover for themselves the single truth that runs through all human thought.
Ibn ‘Arabi famously writes
O Marvel! a garden amidst the flames.
My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
and a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Kaa’ba,
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take,
that is my religion and my faith
