New Vision - Current Issue

Editorial
Our Radiant Self.

In his lesson on ‘Finding the True Self’ HT Hamblin tells us that even now we are one with the Radiant Self or Divine Immanence. And, yet, most of us are only dimly aware of this. However, to the degree that we are aware of It, we recognize that whilst we are not of the world, we can work more effectively in it by giving ourselves in loving service. As an adjunct to this great teachers suggest that we dedicate all that we do to a larger purpose rather than a smaller. So if, say, we clean a floor, we do it not simply to make ourselves more comfortable, but with the awareness that we are bringing the Ideals of Beauty and Order into the world. In this way, the service for me, becomes also a service for you and in a higher sense, for the Divine.


Life, as the Great Initiator, is designed to take us from the narrow ego-centric consciousness to the super-centric and universal Consciousness. This is the Consciousness which sees all things in God and God in all things and it is what we are after! If we meet and embrace life experience – good and seeming bad - full on from the Place of the Radiant Self – we find that whatever comes to us can be used to hasten our development and expand our consciousness.

I very much hope this issue will shine a bright light on your Path and move you closer towards that Radiant Self which is the essence of you and me and every brother and sister we meet…

Bosham House News

· Thank you for supporting our Vision
Invitation to the opening of our Meditation Sanctuary, Sunday 7th September at noon.

We very much look forward to welcoming you to the blessing of our Meditation Sanctuary at noon on 7 September. As most of you will know, HT Hamblin was a Christian in the full meaning of the word and his writings bear witness to the true mystical message of Christianity. In this spirit, he welcomed teachers and aspirants from all traditions. He said, ‘My teaching is for all; it knows no sect, no division. In essence it is at one with the aspiration of all good souls of all nations of all time.’ In this same spirit we welcome representatives from the Buddhist and Sufi traditions as well as the Christian, to celebrate the occasion in short readings of poetry and prose. We are also pleased to announce that John Delafield, HT Hamblin’s grandson, intends to be here to read from his grandfather’s writings on the healing power of Silence. Refreshments will be available.

· Holistic Day, Sunday 7 September, 10.30 am – 4pm – entrance fee to include refreshments £3
Our annual holistic day will also take place on 7 September. You can learn more about health and healing from qualified practitioners in a variety of fields, including Reiki, Reflexology, back care and nutrition. Taster sessions will be available for a modest fee. In addition, there will be meditation, sounding and song, a talk on back care and Tai Chi. Do join us for what promises to be a sparkling day.

Thank you, all of you, for continuing to support The Hamblin Trust through membership. We are based upon firm foundations and have a long tradition, but our work cannot be continued without your interest and participation.

The Hamblin Spiritual Course
Written by Henry Thomas Hamblin

Excerpts from The Hamblin Spiritual Course
(The full lesson and entire Course can be found in
"The Way of the Practical Mystic – The Hamblin Course Book in Mysticism")

One who follows this new way of life, transmuting all negative thoughts into positive and living continually in the knowledge and understanding of Truth, undergoes a process of transformation. Apparently our personality is multiple. There are, at first, devils down below, and angels above, and which is our real self is difficult to tell. By losing our temper we become transformed into a devil, but by loving we become a ‘perfect angel’. As one dear old lady once said to me: ‘There seem so many of us, it is quite confusing’. In course of time, however, a change becomes apparent - the devils die a natural death and a new and higher Self begins to take control of our life. It does not matter what we call this radiant divine Self, so long as we realise that we are one with It. Indeed the truth is that we, in reality, are merged into this radiant Self so that we become one. We do not lose our individuality, but our consciousness expands until it becomes universal. This is the heart of the Inner Teaching.

Finding the True Self - A Mirror and a Kiss by Ronald Lello

My friend Leslie is a heating engineer but if your wife talks to him nicely, he might agree to fix your leaking bathroom radiator or the problem tap in the kitchen. And so it was in my kitchen the other day, that I surprised him by asking, ‘Leslie, where is the true Self?’ His instant response was ‘Go and look in the mirror!’ or words to that effect. I have no intention of doing anything of the sort but his cryptic response caused me to pause. Looking in the mirror - wasn’t that how Snow White’s wicked step mother reassured herself every morning, “Magic mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?” Every morning she got the same old reply and it made her happy. However one day, instead of offering reassurance, the mirror announced the existence of Snow White, innocent and virginal and certainly a lot fairer than the stepmother. The old egoistic crone then sought a variety of ways to annihilate Snow White and seemingly succeeded by deceiving her seven protectors and poisoning her with a shiny apple after which she herself died a horrible death. Happily at the same time a handsome Prince happened to be passing and with a gentle and pure kiss on her lips, brought back Snow White to conscious life

The story is of course a wonderful allegory of the emergence of the true Self from an ‘old world’ created and dominated by the corrupt ego.

He points out that our problem is simply that we have forgotten our real status which is true and have come to believe we are no more than the forms and body and actions we perceive with the senses. Once we remember to stop initiating but always to respond to the creation we observe about us, we begin the journey to awareness of our true stature which is not something small and concealed in the head or heart but is vast and eternal and all encompassing. In fact our true Self is made in the image of God. This Eastern system maintains that we do not have to create the true Self because it is there already...

Readers' Letters

We continue to welcome your letters and emails. If you have a comment on an article or a suggestion to make, why not share your views with others. Please write to the editor at Bosham House, Main Road, Bosham, West Sussex PO18 8PJ or email elizabeth@thehamblinvision.org.uk

Dear Liz
I would like to thank you and your wonderful team yet again for New Vision, especially for dear Stephanie’s article as I have schizophrenia since I was twenty three and am now in my seventy seventh year. I am exceedingly grateful to the medical profession for my continued sanity, though life is not always easy. But I find love and beauty in my surroundings, in people, in nature and of course in your lovely magazine!
Jean M Hall, Oxfordshire

Dear Elizabeth
Your quotation on the front of the last issue of New Vision is very apt, because by stepping back and identifying ourselves with the Witness we raise our consciousness to receive inspiration and Divine Wisdom. I'm enjoying New Vision, apart from totally agreeing with Amara and the others in the Letters'section, about how you have transformed Bosham House and New Vision. I really appreciate Steffie's article about depression being a spiritual journey. I also was very moved by the article 'God never does things halfway'. These articles give one encouragement on our paths.
Fif Hugenholtz, NSW

Dear Office Angels
I would like to renew my membership and wish to give a gift membership to my friend, Janette. On checking with her if she wished me to renew the magazine, she stated how much she looked forward to receiving it and she liked the way it was themed with a particular subject looked at from different angles. I too enjoy the writings and insights in New Vision. With love and blessings.
Loni Webb, East Sussex

Dear Elizabeth
Enclosed my renewal of membership. New Vision is wonderful, so full of love. I have found peace, happiness, joy, serenity and faith – it can move mountains!
Olga James, Merseyside.

The Key Flower by Michael Donnelly

We are only too aware, when speaking of spiritual matters, that we are trying to express the inexpressible, but however difficult the task, something within us urges us to attempt it. It is a language composed of metaphors, hints and suggestions reminiscent of parables and fairy tales which, childish as they may appear, have the power to bring hope and inspiration to those few of us who wish to understand them.

A Fairy Tale
One summer’s day, a very old story goes, a poor shepherd found an unusual flower in the grass whilst tending his sheep. As he stooped to pick it, he noticed a door in the steep hillside which he had never seen before. It was open, so after some hesitation he decided to explore what lay beyond. Advancing cautiously down a dark corridor he came at last to a large room filled with chests of gold and precious stones. Seated in a chair of ancient design was an old man with a long white beard who greeted him kindly and said, ‘Take what you want, but don’t forget the best.’ The shepherd needed no further invitation. Placing the flower on the table he began to fill his pockets, then his hat, with the choicest of the treasures around him, encouraged by the old man, who occasionally reminded him ‘not to forget the best.’ At last, when he could carry no more, he turned to leave. As he reached the outer door he heard the voice behind him calling out for the last time, ‘Don’t forget the best!'

A true meaning

To me, the Key Flower tale is an allegory of the human quest for the riches of Truth. Inspired by a glimpse of rare beauty, we turn from our worldly tasks for a while and enter an open door to find a hidden dimension of untold spiritual wealth. Even there, obstinately clinging to the belief that material possessions hold the solution to our inner poverty, we overlook the very thing, ‘the best’ which will guarantee our happiness for all eternity – the Key Flower, standing for Truth itself.

Progress report

David Anstey, updates us about his wood cabin retreat in Carbis Bay, Cornwall and extends a warm welcome to New Vision readers ...
Ed’s note: David is happy to welcome you to his Sanctuary but prior notification is required. David’s contact details are: 3 Sea Urchin, Headland Road, Carbis Bay, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 2NU email: david.anstey@tesco.net Tel. 01736 794483.

Steps to the Good by Florrie Collins.

In his lesson ‘Finding the True Self’ Hamblin writes, ‘In us there are two wills: Divine Will and the ‘creature’ will. These have to be brought together and become one. This is accomplished by surrendering our own will to the Divine Will.

This seems like a wise teaching, but it raises several questions. What is the Divine Will and the ‘creature’ will? And how can we surrender our own will to the Divine Will?

Surrendering our wills to the Divine sounds like the right thing to do. But isn't it difficult and possibly dangerous to think we know what the Divine Will is? Fanatics and zealots throughout history have lead the world to doom and disaster based on supposed divine revelations, and continue to do so to this day.

But perhaps we don't need to know the exact details of the Divine Will. It's enough to know that the Divine Will is always directed to the highest and fullest Good. Our creature wills are also directed to the good, but not the highest and fullest. When we begin to ponder the nature of the Good, and to observe how we're using our wills, we're beginning the process of surrendering our wills to the Divine.

Chicken Fame, Fortune and Future by Emily Durrant

Food ethics have never before been such a hot topic. Not a day goes by without news revealing truths or opinions behind food products and provenance and thanks to two compassionate celebrity chefs, chickens have been central to this great food debate.
In a series of programmes in January, Channel 4’s Food Week exposed the poor conditions in which most intensively farmed chickens are kept for their short lives. The programmes, presented by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver, resulted in some of the most groundbreaking developments we’ve seen in decades and stimulated changes in the buying habits of many consumers.

Introducing the Chicken

Chickens are descended from the red jungle fowl of Southern Asia, which means that the direct ancestors of the chicken on our dinner plates lived in the wild, amongst canopies of ancient forest. Neither thousands of years of domestication nor selective breeding for high productivity have altered their behaviour or reduced their will to live.
In a natural environment chickens are inquisitive and dignified animals. The females possess powerful maternal instincts and both sexes can enjoy complex social lives. Research shows that they will make a huge amount of effort to build nests prior to laying eggs, find litter for pecking, scratching and dust bathing, and to find additional personal space.

So, whether you eat chicken or not, why not improve the lives of billions of animals, including your own and join us? For more details and further ideas on how to take action for chickens, please call 01483 521953 to order our campaign pack, visit ciwf.org or write to me at Compassion in World Farming, River Court, Mill Lane, Godalming, Surrey GU7 1EZ. Together we can convince supermarkets, farmers and the government that intensive chicken production must end.

Chickens choose to spend much of their time foraging for food and will walk considerable distances searching for the right food. They can also fly short distances and will do so to reach the high-up branches of trees in order to roost over-night; They do this to escape predators and display signs of stress when not given the opportunity. A chicken can live for many years if allowed to do so - up to around 10-12 years is a good run for a chicken.

Depression as a Spiritual Journey (Part 1) by Stephanie Sorrell

Part 2 How to be with Someone Who is Depressed by Stephanie Sorrell.

The title for the article emerged from a single question that a colleague and psychotherapist once asked me, ‘How does one ‘be’ with someone who is depressed?

In order to know how to be with someone who is depressed, we need to examine and reflect upon our own way of managing, coping and, most important of all, being with depression in ourselves. Perhaps we have never been clinically depressed, but all of us will have experienced periods of disillusionment, disappointment and powerlessness within the face of a life event. How do we normally cope? Chances are we have our own tried and tested techniques of coping, dealing and living with the condition. Quite naturally we gravitate towards fixing, alleviating and comforting ourselves.

The purpose of this exercise is to look at how we individually respond to a period of depression and loss and despair within ourselves. How comfortable are we are around it? Because how we react to depression in ourselves is precisely how we will be with others, even though this may be unconscious. There is no shame in not being able to be with depression, only in the denial of this. Depression is very much about what is unbearable and being with the unbearable takes enormous reservoirs of trust and courage.

Ed’s note: Stephanie’s full length book, Depression as a Spiritual Journey, is due to be published by O Books in August 2009. She will be talking on the subject at Bosham House in the Autumn of 2009. Details to be published.

Be As You Are by Vicky Willson

Many years ago I bought a book about the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi called ‘Be As You Are’. At the time, I didn’t understand the significance of the title as I thought that work on a spiritual path would lead somewhere and would enable me to become a better, different person. I had a sense of trying to achieve a distant goal. I wasn’t quite sure what would happen if I ever ‘got there’ but I thought it would somehow put me in a special place. As the years have passed, I’ve now a glimpse of understanding that spiritual work does not involve acquisition and getting to a destination at all. I feel it’s more a question of letting go and coming out of what we are not in order to discover that the true Self is within each of us. As we allow the false identifications and limiting ideas about ourselves to drop away, we get closer and closer to this true Self which is perfect and complete.

As I look at this book today I discover that the teaching within it is essentially a method of self-attention which Sri Ramana Maharshi called self-enquiry. This method helps us to understand that we are not those thoughts which are turning in our minds, not those ever-changing feelings, not the different decisions we make and the different wills we have. Eventually we discover that we’re not even that separate ego ...

Fortune Favours the Daring by Michael Lewin

In the winter of 1941 Thomas Merton left New York (where he had been living, studying and teaching) to journey southwards to Kentucky. His final destination was Gethsemani Monastery where he was to become a novice Trappist monk. He had decided to leave behind the hectic, noisy city in order to find a special simplicity of peace and contentment in a rural backwater. After nurturing and developing his new found Christian faith he now felt ready to make a special commitment – to earnestly and boldly pursue a spiritual path to find his true self. Over a twenty seven year period, with a full engagement as a monk, he produced a fruitful harvest of over sixty books which now command an unprecedented place in the annals of modern Catholic literature. He also managed to transform himself in the process - from a rather callow, self opinionated youth into a man of considerable weight, integrity and kindness that many loved and respected.
Merton’s quest to find his true self was a difficult and arduous journey – the same journey we all face today.

Is there really a choice?

So why do we refuse to engage with the greater potential that lays waiting within us? Why do we detach ourselves from what is so rich, meaningful and real – our true inheritance? Why do we deny our greater potential, our true destiny and allow ourselves to be smaller than we could be? These are the question we must ask and in the process try to formulate possible strategies that will take us forward into growth.

We don’t just ‘find’ ourselves or ‘find’ a new life as if it was something wrapped up, complete and ready to take away. We have to work at it and labour for the results. All we really ever ‘find’ is an awareness of potential that lays deep within us. A potential that whispers to us of a better life and once we hear this voice - once we open to it’s influence, we have no other choice but to follow...

Food for thought, with Naturopath Tania Sellwood

As a Naturopath, I feel incredibly privileged to be able to work with many people who have so often been struggling with an aspect of their health for a long time. This could be something they may have suffered with, or just been mildly irritated by, for many years since childhood, or since a particular time in their life. Often the person has sought many different kinds of treatment options and eventually they arrive in my clinic and state that I am their last option.

Someone who has suffered from an ailment, such as eczema, migraine, sinus congestion, arthritis or fatigue, to name a few common complaints, come and spend a hour or more in clinic with me. At the end of the consultation, they leave with an understanding of their health concern, its aetiology (where it may have originated), its path within the body and its affect on all aspects of that person’s life, physical, mental and emotional. Together with this knowledge and a carefully proven prescription of herbal medicine, nutritional supplements and flower essences as may be necessary, the person leaves the clinic fully empowered and able to make changes immediately to begin to clear the problem.

Talk: Understanding Your Body,Learn to read your own body signs and signals
Saturday 22 November, 2-4pm, Hamblin Hall
Speaker: Tania Sellwood, Ad.Dip.HSc.(Naturopathy),Dip.HSc (Herbal Medicine & Nutrition)
www.naturopath-eav.co.uk Telephone 01794 513153, 07880574466.

Realizing Your Infinite Potential by Peggy Lance Little

What is the ‘true Self’ and why do we need to find it? Certainly what is true is unified and fit for the job. When we sharpen a knife, we say the blade is true. When we select a piece of lumber for a job, we look along its length to see if it is bowed. If it is straight, we say it is true. Among all the multifarious paths, choices and elements in our mundane life, we are constantly choosing which to cultivate, which to keep and which to discard. As we mature, we let fall away many habit patterns and certain people because they are no longer compatible with our current stage of development. In a sense it is good to let fall away what is not useful within ourselves or in our lives but in another way we are still searching among the mundane for true satisfaction. We intuitively know that looking to the inner Self—that Self connected to God and made in his image—is where we will find our true Selves.

Cultivating islands of silence

When we begin to realize there is great peace and harmony in turning to the spiritual within, we long for more. Thus, we begin to see the very strong advantage of cultivating ‘islands of silence’ in our lives. Here, we can meditate on the word of God and deepen areas within ourselves that respond to the upper regions. The ancients tell us that ‘The Deep calleth unto the Deep, the Height to the Deep and the Deep to the Height.’

It is through daily application of what is right and communing with the Source of all things, that the Soul is freed from the swaying vicissitudes of the mundane life. By following what first appears to be a straight and narrow path leads to the greatest freedom and the opening to untapped possibilities in life of the Soul.

My Search for the True Self by Harriet Lang

In one sense, searching for the true Self is all our lives are really about. Rumi recognized this when he wrote ‘Hunt for the Life that springs from the death of yourself.’ Almost all of us seem to be searching for something more whether we consciously relate it to God and spirituality or not. Many of us seek it in our work or relationships, others in material possessions or artistic pursuits. It is perhaps one of the key things which drives us as human beings and sets us apart from animals, for whom food and survival are the prime focus.

Only a few of us choose to seek the true Self where it is likely to be found – deep within, beyond the confines of personality. Through prayer, meditation and contemplation we move beyond the day to day concerns of the personality and our true nature becomes less obscured. As we meditate, we might expect something blinding and magnificent to happen, such as an experience of overwhelming love or an end to fear and pain, but for most of us, the awareness of light grows gently, gradually coming more strongly into focus and growing in intensity.

My personal search for true Self began with quiet meditation but only through sitting in a very dark place and writing the stories which seem to come out of that space has any true feeling of connectedness begun to arise.

Each issue of New Vision also features a good book reviews section

If you have enjoyed these excerpts, please telephone/email Bosham House for a full copy of the magazine. This is available through membership or by donation.
Tel. 01243 572109 email: office@thehamblinvision.org.uk