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    A Spiritual Diary
    A Spiritual Diary
    A Spiritual Diary
    Ebook113 pages2 hours

    A Spiritual Diary

    By Jennifer Hashmi

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    In her Introduction the author traces her spiritual adventure from the early days of her teen-age practise of contemplation. The relaxation sessions with which each day began at Speech Therapy College began her formal training. A member of the C of E, she had a spiritual director from the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, and stayed at the enclosed Convent of the Incarnation in Oxford. After a theology course at College of Ascension Birmingham she sailed for India in 1964. There she was introduced to to the Abhishiktananda Society which promoted Hindu-Christian dialogue. After attending the Inauguration of the Church of North India she visited Gandh-ji's ashram at Sevagram and Vinoba Bhave's ashram not far away. In both of these ashrams the day began before dawn with silent meditation in a dark room lit by a single candle. She was privileged to attend a question/answer session with Vinoba Bhave himself. During those years she read the Upanishads and came to accept the belief in non-duality, advaita, without this in any way compromising her faith in Christ. In 1977 she married Salman Hashmi of the Muslim community and they had a son and a daughter. By the 1990's she was studying New Age methods of meditation, and this Diary is a record of the extraordinary results.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse UK
    Release dateDec 6, 2013
    ISBN9781491886298
    A Spiritual Diary
    Author

    Jennifer Hashmi

    Jennifer Hashmi was born in Bradford in 1938. She was educated in Bingley Grammar School and trained as a speech therapist in Leicester School of Speech Therapy. After practicing as a speech therapist in Yorkshire for three years she completed a two-year theology course at College of Ascension, Birmingham. In 1964 she sailed to India and lived in Delhi for forty-one years. Until 1976 she served in the Church of North India as Parish Worker, initially for St. James Church in old Delhi, and later in the parish of Ajmer in Rajasthan. She was also during part of this time manager of a holiday home in Shimla. In 1977 she married Salman Hashmi who was principal of Zakir Husain College, University of Delhi. They had a son and a daughter. In 2004 her husband passed away so at the end of 2005 Mrs Hashmi returned to Britain with her daughter. She now lives in London with her daughter, son-in-law, and small grandson.

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      Book preview

      A Spiritual Diary - Jennifer Hashmi

      © 2013 Jennifer Hashmi. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      Published by AuthorHouse 12/03/2013

      ISBN: 978-1-4918-8628-1 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4918-8629-8 (e)

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

      and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      CONTENTS

      INTRODUCTION

      PART ONE

      PART TWO

      INTRODUCTION

      I am publishing here a diary I kept from 2000 onwards, though some of the material pre-dated that in the form of rough notes which I copied into this Diary. I wished to show that visionary experience is as available to us now as it ever was if we prepare ourselves and pay attention. These are not trance experiences. One is fully conscious. They are a type of meditation in which there is a meeting of minds between oneself and a spiritual being. This being is not a vision. He is visualized. We have Spirit Guides who are present with us through our lives, and the person we are visualizing is our Guide. The actual contact is through the eyes. You look for his eyes and look straight into them. Then you communicate telepathically. The response drops into the mind and is understood by the mind in its’ own language. One does not imagine the response. One waits for it. Absolute attention is needed. The response often takes the form of images thrown out by the Guide. These images convey the teaching in pictorial form. Sometimes one just sees the images. Sometimes one participates in a short narrative.

      Before turning to the Diary I should give some account of my back-ground to explain how it came about that I started to meditate in this way.

      I was born in Bradford 30.6.1938 so my earliest recollections are set against the backdrop of World War 2. I was amongst those children who set off to school with a gas-mask, and an identity disk round the neck. Our childhood was relatively austere but we knew nothing else.

      I was always interested in spiritual matters, and practiced contemplation from my mid-teens. From 1956-59 I trained as a speech therapist and during those years was taught relaxation. While relaxed physically one was led to imagine a beautiful scene, and then walk into it. This is a method of relaxation used by psychiatrists for purposes of regression or hypno-therapy. While in this state the patient is introduced by the therapist to the deeper layers of his mind. A similar process takes place in meditation, but though one may fall asleep one is not hypnotised. I practiced as a speech therapist for three years in my home area.

      We had moved to Bingley in 1956 and I attended Bingley Parish Church. One of the Fathers of the Anglican Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, was my spiritual director. He taught me a more formal method of meditation, and introduced me to the method of St Ignatius Loyola. This involved visualizing a scene from the New Testament. I used to do it in the parish church. I also used a rosary on and off for a number of years as a focus for contemplation. My favourite spiritual reading was the poems of St John of the Cross, the Cloud of Unknowing, and The Imitation of Christ. I also liked books by Evelyn Underhill. In India I took to reading the Upanishads in English and the Gita.

      From 1962-64 I did a theology course at College of Ascension, Selly Oak, Birmingham and in 1964 sailed to India. Thereafter I lived in Delhi, the ancient city of the Moghuls for many years. At first I lived in St Stephen’s Home which had housed women church workers for a hundred years. These women had been engaged in medical, educational, and pastoral work. To strengthen their cohesion they had formed a Community called St Stephen’s Community, and in 1966 I joined it and lived by its’ rule. This focused on interior silence, no grumbling, and regular prayer in the chapel. Its’ original work was to serve the women of India. It has a brother Community, the Cambridge Brotherhood originally, but which became the Community of the Ascended Christ. Their house was close by and I attended their early morning Communion service. I served as Parish Worker for St James Church, Kashmere Gate until 1969. During these years I felt acutely the need to reach out beyond the narrow confines of the small minority Christian community.

      One of the Brotherhood fathers was closely associated with Swami Abhishiktananda, a Christian sanyasi. He was a French Benedictine monk who adopted the life of a Hindu holy man. His birth name was Henri le Saux. He remained loyal to his vocation but melted into the life of the wandering holy men, and sadhus, of North India. He wrote in his books of the ‘anguish’ of celebrating the mass daily and reading the offices, while at the same time seeking to reconcile the sacramental nature of the mass with the Upanishadic doctrine of non-duality, or advaita. The Upanishads are part of the body of Hindu scripture called the Vedanta which promulgates non-duality and the realization of advaita—the Aaha! moment—after which life is never the same again. God and creation are now known by personal experience to be not two but one. There is no more I and thou in one’s relations with God. Swami Abhishiktananda wrestled towards an intellectual synthesis of the spirituality of the gospels with the realization of one-ness of the Vedanta. He wrote several books. Of course all the people and books I mention can be looked up on the internet

      One of the places he stayed at when not trecking the Himalayas was the Brotherhood House, so I met him there and took part in discussions held there or in the Vidyajyoti Catholic Seminary. One of their very learned Jesuit fathers was also part of that group. Many of the group had studied Sanskrit and quoted it freely, so much of it was above my head. I studied the Upanishads in English and read the Gita. I was also very fond of the poems of Rabindranath Tagore and Kabir. These taught that true spirituality transcends the teachings of the temples and mosques. We should aspire to a realisation of the Real beyond forms.

      In 1970 I left work at St James Church to concentrate on community work. I was house-keeper for St Stephen’s Home and manager of Prospect Lodge, a holiday home for church workers in Shimla in the Himalayas.

      I attended the Inauguration of the Church of North India in Nagpur in November, 1970, and then went on to stay at the Sevagram ashram which had been established by Mahatma Gandhi. It was a compound in which there was a school for the local children. A lot of the land was worked by the children, and the members of the ashram, to grow their own produce, and spinning had a central role. As part of the freedom movement Gandhi-ji had ordered a boycott of imported cloth made from Indian cotton in Britain. He adopted the symbol of the spinning-wheel and spun cotton every day to encourage everyone. To this day the hand-loom cotton cloth indigenous to India is much the most comfortable in the hot weather. Gandhi-ji said Indians must make their own cloth and earn the profits themselves.

      Sevagram though is primarily a spiritual centre. Gandhi-ji used to rise before dawn and sit in meditation for hours before the day began, so the practice continued. I will never forget those hours in a room in which one small oil lamp burnt. Complete silence was observed by everyone.

      I went on to Param Dham ashram and the Brahmavidya Mandir where Vinoba Bhave lived. I took part in question and answer sessions with the Acharya (teacher) and his followers. I also talked with a senior resident there about Christianity and Hinduism. He explained that Christianity on the level of forms is essentially an aspect of Hinduism and compatible. The argument went in circles, as he agreed with everything I said and was perfectly sweet. Not for him the ‘anguish’ of Swami Abhishiktananda! However it is in the actual spirituality that the difference lies. Popular Christianity is dualistic. God and creation are two. Nevertheless the spirituality of both ashrams resonated with me.

      In Britain I was associated with the Convent of the Incarnation, a women’s Anglican enclosed community in Fairacres, Oxford, and was exploring the nature of contemplation and its’ place in Christian spirituality. In 1970 I had stayed with the Sisters of the Love of Go d at the Convent of the Incarnation in Oxford. There I talked with the wonderful Mother Mary Clare. She and the Sisters discussed the work of reparation which was an extension of the work of Christ on the Cross. The contemplative life meant the universalization of personal experience to offer up within it, or make it a part of, the agonies and alienation of the world as a whole. The world was offered up in union with the self-offering of Christ on the Cross. This work was redemptive, and helped towards the spiritual healing of the world. The Sisters’ work of reparation was thus an extension of the work of Christ on the Cross. The Sisters listened to the news every day and knew what they were about.

      However my favourite book on prayer was the Cloud of Unknowing which teaches silent contemplation where one looks towards the fine point of the soul and beyond, ignoring all imagery or thought. This type of contemplation was my practice until I began reading New Age literature on meditation from about 1995.

      In India my interaction with the Abhishiktananda Society continued. This was formed to develop Hindu-Christian dialogue to explore where the two spiritualities were essentially the same, and where they might be radically different.

      Meanwhile in 1974

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