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.

Course Description

“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 courses, whose aim is to acknowledge the one reality that underlies all religious and secular beliefs and to allow for the exploration of inner meanings.

The Ways of the Heart courses are designed to facilitate an understanding of the deepest aspects of the human being. 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 these courses 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 these online Beshara courses 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. 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.

This is the first of the Ways of the Heart courses, there are currently two further courses as well. It consists of 6 themes and 12 online seminars. This course is complete in itself and open to all, both first-time students and those who have already completed other Beshara courses.

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 facilitators to guide and support the understanding of content and its relevance 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 Beshara Forum for exploring ideas as they arise.

Seminars will be recorded for students to listen to during the course period.

Course Aims & Objectives

The Ways of the Heart is a series of online Beshara courses designed for students who wish to gain an understanding of the Unity of Existence. This involves journeying inward to know yourself from a unified point of view. The courses explore how we interact in the world and the possible evolution of humanity, and start from the premise that every individual has the potential to understand their place and purpose in the universe.

Timetable

All Zoom seminars: 20.000 – 21.00 GMT (Tuesdays & Thursdays)

Theme 1 – Know Yourself
1st March: Zoom seminar
Forum discussion
10th March: Zoom seminar

Theme 2 – Praise
15th March: Zoom seminar
Forum discussion
24th March: Zoom seminar

Theme 3 – Humility
29th March: Zoom seminar
Forum discussion
7th April: Zoom seminar

Theme 4 – Theophany of Perfection
12th April: Zoom seminar
Forum discussion
21st April: Zoom seminar

Theme 5 – Service
26th April: Zoom seminar
Forum discussion
5th May: Zoom seminar

Theme 6 – Love & The Essential
10th May: Zoom seminar
Forum discussion
19th May: Zoom seminar

End of Course

Booking

Course administration fees:

Please note the course is limited to 18 participants.

For further information and to apply, please contact:
John Brown at besharacourses@beshara.org

The Chisholme Institute

Discovering Unity: weekend retreat

8 – 10 September 2017
Chisholme Institute, Scottish Borders, UK

Explore your deeper questions with others during a weekend of group study, discussion and conversation.

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

God's Own Being 246

Colours to the Mast

Weekly on Mondays
19:00–20:00 AEST

A series of online sessions exploring creativity and meaning through Poetry, Writing, Images & Song.

Bulent Rauf

The Writings of Bulent Rauf

Saturday, 8th October 2022
14:00–17:00 BST
The October Gallery, London UK

An afternoon devoted to contemplative reading of some of the writings and talks of Bulent Rauf.

Discovering Unity Introductory Weekend

January 27 – 29, 2017

Explore deeper questions in the light of the unity of all existence at the Chisholme Institute. Guided group study of wisdom texts, meditation and more…

Intuitive Drawing course 1-8 July 2017

Intuitive Drawing Course

July 1 – 8, 2017
Chisholme Institute, Scottish Borders, UK

Draw from the heart and learn to see and listen in a new way. In practising to draw it is important to distinguish what the heart is trying to say from what the mind is trying to determine.

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.

Embracing the Opposites

October 21-29, 2017
Senopati, Jakarta

A 9-day study of the Fusus al-Hikam (Bezels of Wisdom) by Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi.

Yurt retreat

Woodland Yurt Retreat

August 26 – September 2, 2017
Chisholme Institute, Scottish Borders, UK

Discover what is essential – free from phones, internet and electricity – living in yurts on the edge of woodland and cooking over campfires in the company of fellow students and facilitators.

A Jewel of Indian Spirituality: Reflections on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

16th May, 2021
15:00 – 16:30 BST

An online seminar with Elizabeth Roberts

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is one of a number of sutra texts from the late Upanishadic period. According to its Indian origins yoga is not just a physical practice but a sacred science of right living and higher awareness aimed at coming to realise the inner truth of the universe – the Divine, God, the Absolute or whatever name one may use to refer to this highest value.

Registration via Eventbrite

Qualities of Love: Trust, Certainty, Patience, Resolution and Veracity

Friday to Sunday, 19th – 21st May 2023
The Abbey, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire

These five qualities have been at the core of practice at Beshara and are considered essential attributes to be developed by those wishing to know themselves in order to know God.

This residential weekend will provide an opportunity to contemplate their meaning and practice through meditation, study and conversation in a tranquil setting.

Socrates’ exhortation was to “Know Yourself”: an exploration according to 4 wisdom traditions

22nd February – 31st May 2023
4 sessions on the final Wednesday of each month
19:00–20:30 GMT/BST

*NEW COURSE*

An online opportunity to contemplate this essential concept according to four major traditions of human wisdom – the philosophies of ancient Greece and India, Christian wisdom and Islamic mysticism.