“Differing Voices Make Sweet Music”: Unity in Diversity in Dante’s Divine Comedy

27th June, 2021
15:00 – 16:30 BST

This event is the fifth in a series of seminars under the general title, Unity in Diversity.

Presented by Robert-Louis Abrahamson

Seminar Description

A theme running throughout the three canticles of Dante’s Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) is the importance of community, which for Dante meant bringing together the diversity of individuals into one unified society, all the varieties of humanity conjoined in the Divine Unity. In Hell, Dante depicts the various ways people’s ego-centred actions destroy the possibility of community. Purgatory shows the way we can turn from the ego and purify ourselves in preparation for the experience of the Divine Unity. Heaven, or Paradise, is the place where Dante experiences, and ultimately joins, the life of perfect union while retaining individual identity. The talk will trace the journey through these three regions, focusing on Dante’s poetic (even mythic) rendition of the soul’s relation to these three aspects of Unity in Diversity.

Speaker

Robert-Louis Abrahamson is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Maryland. He studied Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and has spent much of his career working with mythic literature, mainly from the Western tradition. He has spoken and published on Dante, the American Transcendentalists (Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson) and Charles Williams, and on his namesake, Robert Louis Stevenson. In 2017 he gave a presentation on Thoreau at the Chisholme Institute and in 2018 he gave a talk on Edwin Muir for the Beshara Trust.  His edition of Stevenson’s Virginibus Puerisque, the first of five volumes of Stevenson’s essays for the Edinburgh University Press’s 40-volume Works of Stevenson, was published in October, 2018.

Booking

Cost: FREE via Zoom

Registration is required via Eventbrite
https://sweet-music.eventbrite.co.uk

The Joy of Embodiment

18th April, 2021
15:00 – 16:30 BST

An online seminar with Andreas Weber

Matter. Is it not just “stuff”? Or can it be said to be experiencing as well in some way? In our embodied existences we are at the same time matter (our physical body) and we have an experiencing standpoint. We hence can say something about the joys (and sorrows) of being matter. I will try to sketch a picture of perception not as representation of things, but as co-creation in a “poetic space”.

Registration via Eventbrite

Ibn ‘Arabi and the Ecological Crisis: a Merciful Nemesis? Revisited

September 16th, 2023 (14:00–17:00 BST)
The October Gallery, London

A talk by Peter Coates about the ecological crisis and its deeper significance.

Jami: Lawa‛ih (Flashes)

Weekly from 27th August, 2022
Sundays 13:30–15:30 BST/GMT

Online study of the Lawa’ih (“Flashes”) by Jami, an exposition in poetry and prose of the Unity of Existence as expressed in the work of Ibn ‘Arabi and his school.

Ibn ‘Arabi Study Afternoon

December 1, 2018 (2–5pm)
The October Gallery, London

An afternoon seminar studying the chapter on ‘The Wisdom of Being in the Word of David’ from Ibn ‘Arabi’s Fusus al-Hikam (The Bezels of Wisdom).

Beshara Trust London Seminars

October 14 & November 11, 2017
The October Gallery, London, UK

Two study afternoons looking at the writings of Ibn ‘Arabi and other related authors.

Drowning in the depths of Rumi’s Masnavi

‘You are not a single you, o good comrade; nay, you are the sky and the deep sea’ – Rumi

30th October – 27th November 2023
Weekly Zoom sessions
19:00–20:30 GMT

This course is an opportunity to study and explore some of Rumi’s main spiritual teachings from the Masnavi, which is considered to be his masterpiece.

Poems of Ueftade

Üftade: The Nightingale in the Garden of Love

Weekly from 19th March 2022
Saturdays
18:00–19:00 CDT
Sundays 09:00–10:00 AEST

A reading group for online study of the spiritual poems of Üftade, one of the greatest Ottoman Sufi masters, in English translation from The Nightingale in the Garden of Love.

Ibn ‘Arabi Study Retreat: Abraham and Isaac

September 4 – 10, 2017
Chisholme Institute, Scottish Borders, UK

Study of chapters from Part One of the new, fully annotated translation of the ‘Fusus al-Hikam’ (2018).

Discovering Unity Evening Course

April 27 – June 15, 2017
Oxford, UK

“Who in the world am I. Ah, that’s the great puzzle” Lewis Carrol. A seven week introductory evening course with weekly meetings.

40 Day Retreat Course

October 16 – November 26, 2017
Chisholme Institute, Scottish Borders, UK

What does it mean to be human? How do we relate to ourselves, to others, to the world?

The Ways of the Heart I

25th February – 19th May 2022

The One Calling the Many: the first Ways of the Heart course exploring a spiritual life and unified perspective in the contemporary world.

NB. This course will be held at GMT.

Contact: besharacourses@beshara.org

Singleness, Oneness & Singularity

Speaker: Avi Abadi

Saturday 15th July 2023
2:00-5:00pm BST
The October Gallery

The metaphysics of unity according to Ibn ‘Arabi