From the Editor
Dear Members,
This is the first of the Phiroz Mehta Trust Newsletters, and I hope the first of many. We plan to issue three to four Newsletters a year, and although it is a very modest production at the moment, we hope it will grow and develop into a life of its own. But this depends on all of us, the members, so please do send your suggestions, comments and criticisms about it to me. Short articles on relevant themes would be particularly appreciated.
Phiroz has himself made a contribution to the first issue. His message seems especially appropriate in these troubled and dangerous times.
If you feel that you would like to be more involved with the work of the Trust, please look at “Help” where you will find some suggestions. There is a lot of work on a very practical level to be done, and by working together perhaps we may truly be able to “come together.”
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There are a number of ways in which members can help with the work of the Trust.
Firstly help is greatly needed at Dilkusha. Joan Fuller and Laila De Lys are doing wonders with the cooking and general housekeeping for Phiroz, but obviously they are not always able to be there, and much more help is needed, both at the weekends and during the week. If you would like to help Phiroz personally, thereby of course enjoying the pleasure of his company and conversation, please telephone Laila De Lys.
Members with special interests are invited to hold small groups at Dilkusha or Lillian Road on their chosen topics. Phiroz feels that this is particularly important in order that members may develop their own abilities and gifts and express them as a part of religious human living. Please contact Phiroz or Rosemary Monk.
It is hoped also that members may form small local groups among themselves, meeting in their own homes. A list of members’ names and addresses is being circulated.
Help is required before and after the meetings which Phiroz is holding at Dilkusha. Several people each time are needed to open the front door, receive members, make and serve tea, wash up and generally look after the arrangements. Please contact Rosemary Monk.
The garden at Dilkusha will also be requiring attention. If you would like to join the Gardening Group, please telephone Liz David.
Help is also needed with compiling an index of Phiroz’s recorded talks. This entails reading through his handwritten notes and selecting two or three key words from each talk for inclusion in the index. This work can of course be done in one’s own time at home. The Trust has received several inquiries for an index or catalogue of Phiroz’s talks, and at present we have nothing to offer. An index will be absolutely indispensible to future students of Phiroz’s work. If you can help, please contact Rosemary Monk.
Lastly, a reiteration of the request on for short articles on appropriate themes and comments and suggestions about the Newsletter and the work of the Trust. Please send these to the Editor.
Laila De Lys is wondering if anyone is interested in joining a “Self-Health” group in which one can explore, bring and share issues which relate to one’s own health and that of others.
Topics could include Tai-Chi, Yoga, Herbalism, Alexander Principle, meditation, radionics, Bach flower remedies, etc. To this end, Phiroz has once again put his home at the disposal of the members, and there will be a meeting at 3:30pm on Saturday 9th March in which people can discuss these issues in an informal gathering.
47 Lillian Road will be open from 3:00pm until the evening on the following Tuesdays. All members will be most welcome, but please ring first in case of some unforeseen circumstance.
By Phiroz Mehta
May the New Year, 1991, ushering in the closing decade of the twentieth century be blessed with Peace, with Love, with Enlightenment and Beauty. May it see the ending of war and strife, of delusion and folly and of ill pursuits.
The state of the world is the outward expression of our own state. What is good reflects our own goodness, the goodness of each of us as individuals who make up society. Whatever is ill is the inevitable consequence of our own ignorance and wrong-doing in thought and word and deed.
It is our own responsibility to see this for ourselves and not outside ourselves. The externally imposed good leads only to inner conflict. We are creatures of feelings and desires specifically characteristic of each one of us individually. Just as we can see objects only with our own eyes, so too our own perceptions of our desires will tell us the psychical forces which produce good or evil. Parents, teachers and companions may help us or hinder us. Such help or hindrance conditions us. But all conditioning is bondage. Freedom needs Enlightenment which is present only when we clearly see the Truth for ourselves and live by it in thought and word and act.
Seeing the Truth for ourselves is like being like the sun pouring out Light and Warmth and Life, by completely expending its own manifested being. So too let all selfness be transmuted into selflessness.
Thus will we sow the seeds whose flowering will be Peace and Love and Beauty throughout the world.
Blessed be 1991.
By Michael Piggott
Four of one kind And one of another And for what is it given But to reach out to a brother
Fashioned through ages A material perfection But lost without guidance Of a spiritual direction
Bringer of food Bringer of shelter Player of music Writer, sculptor, painter
Slowly it trails From the boat in the water Then shades out the sun From the face of the daughter
Softly and tender As they care for the sick Watching out for the feeble Carried on by the quick
Bringers of life Into our world Natures own helpers Of maternity unfurled
Nothing too major Nothing too small For sooner or later They must attend to it all
Some firm and rough others soft and unsure As they point out the way And open the door
Chords of communion These miracles of nature Expressed in their beauty From a loving Creator
By Laila de Lys
About two months ago, during a Sunday afternoon gathering, Phiroz spoke of the importance we human beings have towards ourselves and others. He specifically drew our attention to the natural abilities a person has, as they are a gift of Transcendence. One of the purposes of human existence is to recognise these abilities and canalize them as beneficial influences in the life of mankind. Often these abilities are like seeds in the desert — they remain static and dormant till the rain comes and they blossom into beautiful flowers. This set me thinking and made me realize that any kind of knowledge we have is only valuable when we share it with others.
Keeping up with the new climate of thought, Phiroz has once again scattered new seeds; it is up to us to nurture them and see that they blossom. If new activities are to emerge, this will inevitably bring debates and perhaps some degree of tension which needs facing up to, but this can be positive. Members are now finding new areas of interest which will encourage people to be more confident, to explore themselves and others, and grow in the real meaning of the ward Hu-Man “The Happy Creator.” The original work of the Trust will remain the inspiration for the exploration and sharing of these interests. However, we must remember that Growth, like Love, cannot be encouraged and then have arbitrary limits set upon its consequences. We, the members, who work together in harmony, are Phiroz’s true students. May we all be blessed by his love that like drops of rain falling fertilizes the soil.
By Fynn
“Please, please, Mister God, teach me how to ask real questions. Oh please, Mister God, help me to ask real questions.”
“Tich,” I said, “what were you asking God about real questions for?”.
“Ah, it’s just sad, that’s all.” “What’s sad?”
“People is.”
“I see. What’s sad about people?”
“People ought to get more wise when they grow older. Bossy and Patch do, but people don’t.”
“Don’t you think so?” I asked.
“No. People’s boxes get littler and littler.”
“Boxes? I don’t understand that.”
“Questions are in boxes”, she explained, “and the answers they get only fit the size of the box.”
“That’s difficult; go on a bit.”
“It’s hard to say. It’s like — it’s like the answers are the same size as the box. It’s like them dimensions.”
“Oh?”
“If you ask a question in two dimensions, then the answer is in two dimensions too. It’s like a box. You can’t get out.”
“I think I see what you mean.”
“The questions get to the edge and then stop. It’s like a prison.”
“I expect we’re all in some sort of prison.”
She shook her head. “No, Mister God wouldn’t do that.”
“I suppose not. What’s the answer then?”
“Let Mister God be. He lets us be.”
“Don’t we?”
“No. We put Mister God into little boxes.”
“Surely we don’t do that?”
“Yes, all the time. Because we don’t really love him. We got to let Mister God be free. That’s what love is.”
By John Keats
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of Marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
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