Monday 5 September
Exploring Eternal Wisdom East and West
PROFESSOR RAVI RAVINDRA
In the chair Swami Ambikananda
Venue Brunswick Ltd. (formerly The Lincoln Centre)
Doors open 5.40pm
Lecture 6.15pm – 7.45pm
Eternal wisdom is associated with the quality of being. Eternity is orthogonal to time sequence and Eternal wisdom can manifest itself at any time in time, but it is not restricted to time. Many aspects of Eternal Wisdom are common to all spiritual traditions, especially in the mystical and experiential domain calling for the journey of evolution towards oneness with the Highest Reality. But there are some important differences in the philosophical and theological expressions in the two main streams of spirituality—Abrahamic and Indic. For example, in the Indian traditions there is no creation myth. Instead, there is an emanation myth. Brahman did not create the world; IT became the world. Everything and every creature has a particle of Brahman in their depth and the call is to evolve towards that Supreme identity when a truly exalted sage can genuinely say, ‘I am Brahman.’ In the Abrahamic traditions, such an utterance is regarded as blasphemy and heretical since no creature can be like the Creator.
Another consequence of the basic difference mentioned above is that in the Indian tradition there is a repeated emphasis on oneness of all whereas in the Abrahamic tradition the emphasis tends to be on the uniqueness of each being.
RAVI RAVINDRA is an author and Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he served as professor in comparative religion, philosophy, and physics. He was a member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla, and the founding director of the Threshold Award for Integrative Knowledge. He has published several books, including fresh translations of and commentaries on the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita.
Swami Ambikananda is the principal founder of The Traditional Yoga Association.
Admission free
Please bring cash if you wish to purchase books by Ravi Ravindra.
Monday 10 October
The Rainbow Body in Tibetan Dzogchen
DR DYLAN ESLER
In the chair Professor John Carey
Venue The Royal Asiatic Society
Doors open 6.15pm
Lecture 6.45pm – 8.30pm
Dzogchen is a special doctrinal and contemplative approach found both within the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism and the indigenous Bön tradition of Tibet.
One of the unique and very striking features of this approach is the attainment of the rainbow body (Tib. ’ja’ lus), a sign of accomplishment in specific Dzogchen meditative practices, whereby the physical body shrinks and dissolves at the time of death, accompanied by rainbow lights.
This lecture will explore the meaning of the rainbow body phenomenon within the context of Dzogchen traditions of contemplative practice and will also look at the phenomenon from the perspective of comparative mysticism.
DYLAN ESLER is a scholar and translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts. He holds a PhD in Languages and Literature from the University of Louvain and an MA in Buddhist Studies from SOAS, London. He currently works at the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) of the Ruhr-University Bochum and is also affiliated with the Oriental Institute of Louvain (CIOL). His research interest focuses on early Nyingma expositions of Dzogchen and Tantra. Articles of his have appeared in the Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Temenos Academy Review, the BuddhistRoad Paper series and Sophia: The Journal of Traditional Studies. His annotated translation of Nubchen Sangye Yeshe’s Samten Migdrön, a seminal 10th-century text on Buddhist contemplation, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Admission
£8 or £5 Members of the Temenos Academy/Concessions
Full-time students with student ID card FREE
Monday 17 October
Gold in the Crucible: Futuwwa, Dante, and the Alchemy of Soul-Making
DR ALISON ROBERTS
In the chair Julia Cleave
Venue Brunswick Ltd (formerly The Lincoln Centre)
Doors open 5.40pm
Lecture 6.15 – 7.45pm
‘Learn Futuwwa from your wife’, is the unexpected advice given by Bāyazīd al-Bisṭāmī to Aḥmad ibn Khiḍruya, a respected Futuwwa leader in Balkh in the ninth century, especially considering that this ancient chivalric tradition, which honours the prophet Abraham as founder, is usually associated with male courage and valour. Yet around the same time, Fatima of Nishapur was initiating the Egyptian Sufi, Dhū’l-Nūn al-Misrī, into this spiritual art after they met at Mecca. Less well-known, however, is the fusion of Futuwwa with alchemy’s feminine rebirth mysteries, which this talk will explore, including in Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī’s Mathnawī and Muḥyīddīn Ibn ʿArabī’s encounter with the chivalric Youth (fatā) at the Black Stone of the Kaaba in Mecca. Highlighted, too, will be the parallels with Dante Alighieri’s transformative journey to a ‘noble’ life in the Vita Nova, inspired by his love for Beatrice. The talk will be illustrated with alchemical imagery.
ALISON M. ROBERTS studied Ancient Egyptian and Akkadian languages at Oxford University where she received her doctorate in 1984 for her thesis on the goddess Hathor. Since then, she has written and published a quartet of books on the Divine Feminine and the roots of Hermetic alchemy in ancient Egypt (1995–2019). More recently, her love of Egyptian alchemy has taken her to Islamic mysticism, and this talk is based on two separate articles she has written: one is in two parts and due to appear in the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society (volumes 71 and 72), the other in the Italian journal Oikosophia.
Admission
£8 or £5 Members of the Temenos Academy/Concessions
Full-time students with student ID card FREE
Thursday 27 October
British Visionary Artists
David Jones’s Magic Casements
PROFESSOR PAUL HILLS
In the chair Hilary Davies
Venue The Royal Asiatic Society
Doors open 6.15
Lecture 6.45pm – 8.30pm
Admission
£8 or £5 Members of the Temenos Academy/Concessions
Full-time students with student ID card FREE
Thursday 3 November
Universal Symbolism: The Metaphysical Centre
NICHOLAS COPE
In the chair Christine Rhone
Venue The Royal Asiatic Society
Doors open 6.15pm
Lecture 6.45pm – 8.30pm
Nicholas Cope writes:
Professor Keith Critchlow regularly referred to the centre of the circle as ‘the unseen or invisible God.’ My first questions to Keith regarding this were in 1982 when he became my personal tutor during my first-degree course in Fine Art/Painting. The ideas we discussed over the ensuing years, concerning the universal nature of geometry and symbolism, form the seed of my illustrated presentation.
The metaphysical principle inherent in the symbolic relationship between the Centre (as origin) and the circumference (as manifestation) is essentially discernment between Reality (Ātma) and illusion (Māyā). The Centre is the unconditioned Principle which is both transcendent to and immanent in the circumference – the manifest world. Thus, this perennial perspective attunes us to the sacred in the natural order. The Centre is the principial point of departure of all things and the object of return, which is identity with the Supreme Self and liberation from the bonds of individual and temporal existence.
NICHOLAS COPE is an artist, geometer, and author, whose work is devoted to the Sophia Perennis as embodied in the symbolic geometry of both Traditional Art a
Wednesday 9 November
British Visionary Artists
Christopher Wood: Talent and Conflict
FRANCES SPALDING CBE, FRSL
In the chair Hilary Davies
Venue The Royal Asiatic Society
Doors open 6.15pm
Lecture 6.45pm – 8.30pm
£8 or £5 Members of the Temenos Academy/Concessions
Full-time students with student ID card FREE
Wednesday 16 November
British Visionary Artists
The Extraordinary in the Ordinary: Stanley Spencer as a Religious Painter
DR SUSANNA AVERY-QUASH
In the chair Hilary Davies
Venue The Royal Asiatic Society
Doors open 6.15pm
Lecture 6.45pm – 8.30pm
£8 or £5 Members of the Temenos Academy/Concessions
Full-time students with student ID card FREE
Wednesday 23 November
Cosmos, City, and Soul in Plato’s Laws
DR JOSEPH MILNE
In the chair Ian Skelly
Venue The Royal Asiatic Society
Doors open 6.15pm
Lecture 6.45pm – 8.30pm
£8 or £5 Members of the Temenos Academy/Concessions
Full-time students with student ID card FREE
ADVANCE BOOKING for ALL events to temenosacademy@myfastmail.com
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TELEPHONE: (01233) 813663
COVID-19 REQUIREMENTS
Please do not attend if you or a member of your household has tested positive for Covid-19/has symptoms associated with the virus/are feeling unwell.
SUMMER TERM 2022 : PAST EVENTS
Thursday 7th July 2022
Philip Sherrard and the Experience of God
PROFESSOR ANDREW LOUTH
Thursday 30 June 2022
René Guénon’s Crisis of the Modern World Revisited
PROFESSOR PATRICK LAUDE
Monday 20 June 2022
Metaphysician, Heal Thyself!
Koranic Perspectives on the Ecological Crisis
DR REZA SHAH-KAZEMI
Monday 13 June 2022
The Seven Ages
PROFESSOR SPIKE BUCKLOW
Thursday 26 May 2022
The Lesser and Greater Mysteries of Chinese Traditional Martial Arts
DR JUAN ACEVEDO
Wednesday 18 May 2022
Endless Voyaging: Spiritual Journeying in ʿAttar and Ibn ʿArabī
JANE CLARK
Wednesday 11 May 2022
In association with The University of Wales Trinity Saint David Harmony Programme
The Learning of the Imagination: Legend & Inspiration
A STUDY DAY with Professor John Carey, Sandra Hill and Katy Cawkwell
Thursday 5 May 2022
The Spiritual Significance of Movements in Odissi Indian Temple Dance
a talk and performance by
KATRINA RUTE
Wednesday 27 April 2022
Christian Wonder Tales
An evening of stories told by
MARTIN SHAW
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[Image: Part of a larger Batik painting, The Holy City, by Thetis Blacker]
