Sher Point and the Shadowlands

The Lost Treasure of Roth Nagor

2012-01-04T02:35:00.000-08:00

Got a new novel out, The Lost Treasure of Roth Nagor. It's a historical prequel to the Shadowlands series, so maybe read it first.

You can pick it up 24:7 at our Dropbox mirror site. Or it's available at the Sher Point Publications UK web site, which is on-line from 10:00 to 22:30 hours, UK time, most days. Enjoy.

Life on the Flipside (or In Two Minds)

2011-09-21T02:25:00.000-07:00

The first, draft edition of a new novel, Life on the Flipside (or In Two Minds) by Etienne de L'Amour has just been released.

Set in the Shadowlands, it is a historical prequel to the Shadowlands series, so it's perhaps best to read this first, or to even skip the rest.

The work available in PDF format 24:7 from Dropbox; from the Sher Point Publications, UK web site between 10:00 and 22:30 hours, UK time; and also 24:7 from the yahoo! group W.O.R.K.. EPUB and MOBI versions are also now available, only at the Sher Point web site.

• Dropbox mirror
• Sher Point Publications, UK
• Yahoo! group W.O.R.K.

Enjoy.

Sher Point Publications @ Facebook

2011-06-13T06:58:00.001-07:00

Since the Sher Point web server is only on-line from 10:00 to 22:30 hours, UK time, most days, we've created a page for Sher Point Publications at Facebook which provides links to the new mirror site at Dropbox.

Several of the novels and Sufi-related short documents are available in PDF format at Dropbox 24:7.

Escape from the Shadowlands, revised

2011-06-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

At Sher Point, we're producing third, revised editions of the novels by Etienne de L'Amour (regardless of what the previous edition was). These are marked with the words [3rd ed].

1 June 2011: The new edition of Escape from the Shadowlands is now available in PDF, EPUB and MOBI formats. This was formerly entitled Sher Point: Escape from the Shadowlands.

Download from:
Sher Point web site
(on-line UK daytime and evening, all formats)
Dropbox mirror (24:7, PDF)
Yahoo! group W.O.R.K. (members, 24:7, PDF).

Heart to Heart by Rohan Powell

2011-04-07T10:50:00.001-07:00

In 1991, Rohan Powell published a selection of poetry entitled Heart to Heart. We have now re-published that collection. The original was illustrated throughout with black and white ink drawings. Unfortunately, only the front cover, full colour drawing depicting a circle of hearts could be located.

You can find the PDF in the Sher Point web site's Short documents, in the readers' contributions section toward the bottom of the page. It's also mirrored 24:7 at Dropbox (at the foot of the list of novels).

New novella, March 2011: The Insiders

2011-03-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

A new novella, The Insiders: Exploring the higher realms of possibility by Etienne de L'Amour has just been published. It is the latest in the Shadowlands series, but it may be read as a free-standing novel. You don't have to read the other books first. It is the only book so far to be written in the first person. The book is as yet only 110 pages long; however the content is quite densely packed.

You can find the first draft edition of the book in pdf, epub and mobi formats in Novels for adults at the Sher Point web site (though it contains no adult content) and in the files section of the Yahoo! group W.O.R.K..

Mirror sites: All the PDFs are now mirrored at the yahoo! group. All the novels in the Shadowlands series and several short documents by and about Idries Shah are now mirrored at Sher Point at Dropbox.

The Sher Point web site is on-line from 10:00 to 22:30 hours, UK time; the Yahoo! group and Dropbox are available 24:7.

Electronic Publication (EPUB) and MobiPocket (MOBI)

2011-01-18T07:21:00.001-08:00

Etienne de L'Amour's novels, previously available as PDFs, are now also available in Electronic Publication (EPUB) and MobiPocket (MOBI) ebook formats. They may be downloaded from the newly-redesigned Sher Point Publications, UK web site.

Some of the pages have moved to these new locations:

The site is on-line from 10:00 to 22:30 hours, uk time, most days.

W.O.R.K.

2011-01-07T04:58:00.000-08:00

Hi, just to let you know that The Tenth Donkey yahoo! group has now become W.O.R.K. (Web Organization for Research into Knowledge).

W.O.R.K. is an informal group for folk engaged in psychological and spiritual quests; for friends of sarmouni.dyndns.org (now Sher Point Publications, UK), and for related individual and group research projects. Members are free to engage in general chat or to propose more serious study.

Many in this unofficial group are interested in the works of the writer and Sufi teacher Idries Shah. However, the group is open to alternative, practical ways ahead.

Working with Teaching Stories, a group project facilitated by Malihe, was started on 28 Jan 2011 and is still open to constructive contributors.

There is now a new W.O.R.K. Facebook page, which complements the yahoo! group but does not replace it.

with good wishes,
etienne

Whisperings of Love

2010-11-28T10:22:00.000-08:00

Hi, sorry for the hiatus in posting to the blog: I've been working on a new novel, Whisperings of Love, and I'm happy to say that the first edition is now out.

You can get hold of the novel gratis at the W.O.R.K. yahoo! group and at Sher Point Publications UK: Novels by Etienne de L'Amour. It's a 256 page PDF and weighs in at 1.08 MegaBytes.

Hope you enjoy the work.

With warm wishes in the depths of the UK winter,
etienne.

Waiting ...

2010-07-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

Nasrudin once shared his house with a lodger who lived in a cramped attic on the top floor. The lodger came home drunk late one night and as he was getting undressed, as he often did he dropped his shoe noisily on the floor, waking Nasrudin who was in the room below.

Realizing that he'd dropped the shoe and probably woken Nasrudin yet again, the lodger carefully removed his other shoe and placed it quietly on the floor before tiptoeing to his bed.

An hour later, having indeed been disturbed by the noisy lodger and now unable to sleep, Nasrudin stormed out of his bedroom and hollered up the stairs: "For heaven's sake, man! Drop the other shoe!"

~ Excerpted from a short PDF entitled "The Hidden Directorate" hosted on the Sher Point web site.

All in the Mind: The Master and His Emissary

2010-06-23T03:18:00.000-07:00

There's a wonderful, explanatory and in-depth interview with Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, on ABC National Radio's show All in the Mind.

As well as an audio podcast, there's a transcript on the web page, and further mp3 audio clips on the show's official blog.

Comment: The Gulf oil disaster

2010-06-18T02:34:00.000-07:00

The Gulf oil disaster -- caused by BP and/or some of its contractors -- is horrendous, and we extend our heart-felt sympathies to the families of those who died in the rig blow out, and to folk living in the Gulf states and beyond who are being hit by the ongoing effects of the disaster. And the company's safety record and catalogue of alleged errors which led up to the disaster beggars belief.

Whilst some in the Congressional Committee were clearly playing to an audience back home to show they were on the ball and to boost their chances in their forthcoming re-election, they were of course right to grill BP's chief executive. It would have helped, however, had they collated their speeches and questions in order to avoid the gross repetition. Clearly the BP CEO had been briefed and gave very guarded or evasive responses or claimed not to have many items of information available. Why the committee members did not push the issue and demand that technical experts and operations managers from BP were called upon and sworn in, beats me.

And instead of the constant replies of 'I don't know', in this day and age when folk are seconds away at the other end of a TV, a computer or a mobile phone, it would have helped greatly had the BP CEO replied: 'I don't know at this moment, but -- tell you what -- give me a minute and I'll get in touch with someone who does have an answer to that question.'

From a British perspective, as well as sympathizing with those on the Gulf coast and dependants further afield, there is the additional worry of what's going to happen to people's investments and their pensions, since so many have plans which are reliant on BP performing well. BP's shares have fallen by around 50% since the blow out, the dividend has been suspended and a lot of little folk in the UK are going to get stung, too.

$20 billion will be put aside from BP funds to pay for the clean-up and for losses incurred. But already some are saying that the disaster could cost $100 billion. I can see that sooner or later, someone's going to have to brave the cameras and tell us that BP's cupboard is bare ....

Sher Point Publications, UK

2010-04-24T23:33:00.000-07:00

OK, I've had my arm gently twisted by a couple of kind and dear friends. Though the sarmouni web site won't be back, since I'd already logged into dyndns.org and deleted the sarmouni sub-domain, you'll once again find the novels and Idries Shah / sufi-related short pdf documents at a new web site, Sher Point Publications, UK.

With a new name and address, the site represents a change in direction and emphasis. It will be on-line between 10:00 and 22:30 hours, UK time, on an informal or occasional basis. If you find the server unavailable, it could be that I'm asleep, still in the shower or out shopping, so please try again whenever you feel the urge.

Some of the content has moved. You'll find the new pages here:

Thanks a lot, not least for your patience,
Etienne.

Winding down @ sarmouni

2010-04-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm winding down on-line operations, and have now taken the sarmouni.dyndns.org web site off-line.

You can join the yahoo! group W.O.R.K. where you'll meet some amiable folk. Copies of the e-books are in the group's files archive which is accessible to members, along with a number of Idries Shah / Sufi-related pdf documents.

Available book titles include: Sher Point: Escape from the Shadowlands; Thank You, I Understand; In Search of Destiny; The Lucian Uprising; Time and Time again; The Gift; and The Host and the Guests. I've tentatively begun an eighth, On the Threshold of Eternity. The front cover will feature a painting by Vincent van Gogh: Old Man In Sorrow (On the Threshold of Eternity)—and yes, they do say that a picture speaks a thousand words.

Be seeing you,
Etienne.

Question: How do soap operas affect society?

2010-01-05T07:05:00.000-08:00

In the UK, soap operas largely feature social realism with lots of conflict portrayed in an exaggerated fashion.

Does imbibing this several times daily, as many do, have a detrimental affect on society? Does it represent a "dumbing down" of television? Are we simply "better informed" about our iniquity? Or are the story lines actually educational and edifying?

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T11:28:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to one and all. I really hope that this is a positive year for you.

Have just put a novel, The Host and The Guests, to bed. Am feeling exhausted, so I'll leave it as it is for now and have a look at revisions in a few weeks, hopefully with fresh eyes. In the meantime, a draft is available on the Sher Point Publications UK web site and at the yahoo! discussion group, W.O.R.K..

“Don't just stand there and nod. The mind observes and cogitates, the heart engages, and I would encourage you to engage with the process,” Mair Freida smiled, turning to the students.

Take care,
Etienne.

Beyond the impasse: anything goes

2009-12-22T01:39:00.000-08:00

OK, so a few days ago I was feeling becalmed writing The Host and the Guests (see The devil is in the detail). For some reason I came to a point where I couldn't flesh out the bare bones of the story, largely due to circumstances that I'd allowed to develop in the preceding pages. One of the characters with their own raison d'être, direction and myopic vision had taken over the writing, as it were.

At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Well, no. The truth of the matter is clear: I've obviously imbued the primary realm, the Shadowlands, with its own set of laws and conventions (borrowed from my own psyche, constitution, values, limitations and experience) in an effort to portray it more realistically and make the reader feel at home.

I've found a solution, though, by bringing about a dramatic change in the lead character's circumstances which places them in a predicament and yet simultaneously opens up a whole new vista for them.

I'd been watching some festive fantasy films on the run up to Christmas and the answer, to which I was at the time oblivious, was repeatedly staring me in the face. Enter the MacGuffin, an admittedly mechanistic literary device, but also an effective means of transporting the lead character, in this case to a dream world or alternative reality where habits are broken, rules thrown out of the window, and "anything goes".

The Master and his Emissary

2009-12-21T05:35:00.000-08:00

Perhaps worth a look, though I have not as yet read the book, is The Master and his Emissary by Iain McGilchrist. The Sufi Idries Shah presents material related to the hemispheric functioning of the brain and his deputy in the States, Robert Ornstein, made such research one of his specialities and also drew on Sufi teaching stories and Nasrudin jokes in his own writing.

"The left hemisphere, though unaware of its dependence, could be thought of as an “emissary” of the right hemisphere, valuable for taking on a role that the right hemisphere - the “Master” - cannot itself afford to undertake. However it turns out that the emissary has his own will, and secretly believes himself to be superior to the Master. And he has the means to betray him. What he doesn't realize is that in doing so he will also betray himself."

From a brief introduction to The Master and his Emissary at www.iainmcgilchrist.com.

Have just produced a draft Wikipedia article about The Master and His Emissary which you may find useful.

The devil is in the detail

2009-12-16T11:31:00.000-08:00

Work on The Host and the Guests is slow at the moment, as though I have an overall storyline in mind, there's a distinct lack of detail and I'm relying on the characters taking me on a journey as I write. I'm trying to make sure that any developments are realistic and add to my options rather than "back me into a corner" where I'd rather not be.

Once ideas for detail come, the writing tends to be "full steam ahead", and it's a matter of frantically getting things written down (even in the form of brief notes) before it slips from my mind, but right now I'm feeling "becalmed."

Painting: Cassie Thinking About Cubism by and copyright (c) Philip Absolon. See Philip Absolon at stuckism.com. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.

WordWeb

2009-12-12T06:18:00.000-08:00

A third writing aid that I find readily-accessible, easy to use and nag free is WordWeb.

According to the web site: "WordWeb is a one-click English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows that can look up words in almost any program. It works off-line, but can also look up words in web references such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia."

For further information, check out the WordWeb wikipedia article and the product's web site.

FreeMind

2009-12-12T05:34:00.000-08:00

Another tool I use to jot down ideas for novels is FreeMind. It allows the creation of mind maps: nodes (like thought bubbles) containing ideas, which are connected to one-another by lines. For a full description, see the FreeMind wikipedia article.

The only thing that's missing from FreeMind, in my opinion, is the ability to create "orphan" nodes for ideas which are as yet unconnected to other ideas.

FreeMind is written in Java and needs Java Runtime Environment 1.4 or later. You can find Sun's Java here.

You can download Freemind from the web site here.

wikidPad

2009-12-11T11:14:00.000-08:00

Just doing what I should have done at the outset: I'm using an open source (ie free) tool called wikidPad to keep centralized references to important facts in the novels. And yes, I have noticed a few discrepancies and typos in the novels.

wikidPad is a cross between Notepad (a text editor) and a wiki (like wikipedia). You just type away and if you want to create a new page, you enter a WikiWord in your text.

A WikiWord is a word that begins with an uppercase character and contains one or more uppercase characters, like the word "WikiWord" itself or "ABCd." wikidPad will automatically detect these words and convert them to hyperlinks as you type. To force a word to wikilink, enclose it in square brackets. To exclude a word, precede it with a backslash "\".

You may specify the name of the page you wish to create and the text you wish to see by enclosing the word in square brackets and entering the WikiWord followed by a pipe "|" character, then the text. For example, [TimeAndTimeAgain|Time and Time Again] produces a hyperlink, in this case reading "Time and Time Again" and linking to the page TimeAndTimeAgain.

Then you simply double click on the link to create and edit that page, just as you would with a wiki in a web browser.

There's a blue and white button near the top of the window which allows you to switch between editing and preview.

For more information, see the wikipedia article and the wikidPad home page.

The tail is wagging the dog

2009-12-02T03:27:00.000-08:00

There is something very precious deep down in each of us, and this has been likened to a jewel buried in a mountain (of conditioning), which we need to dig out, by applying real effort, to retrieve.

The age-old problem is that this essential part of our being goes largely unnoticed or disregarded. It is usually deeply hidden and held a virtual prisoner by other parts of us who have us in their sway, and is as a consequence largely lost to us. The chief culprit in this affair is what Sufi mystics call the Commanding Self: the mixture of primitive and conditioned responses, common to everyone, that inhibits and distorts human progress and understanding. We are greatly hindered by unbridled ego, the allegedly sovereign intellect, by inappropriate or over- emotion, and by a number of unfortunate traits such as ignorance, impatience, lack of trust, vanity, pride, greed, hypocrisy, delusion and spurious imagination (not to be confused with the more felicitous creative imagination).

Put another way, and though it's not a popular thing to propose, you might say that in the case of the vast majority of unregenerate individuals, we are misguided. Indeed, we are "upside down in the world", "arse about face" or, as they say, the tail is wagging the dog.

In the early stages of the mystical education, it can take a great deal of time and effort before, as in the case of an alcoholic at length conceding that their drinking is out of control and problematic, the person comes to the realization that they are not really a single, unified "I" but as the psychologist Robert Ornstein puts it are run by an inappropriately chosen "squadron of primitive simpletons"; that they are not in command of themselves; that they are essentially prisoners of their own self, and have problems; and that there are alternative possibilities and further dimensions to life of which they are pretty much ignorant or scorn.

The Sufis found centuries ago that attacking such issues head on will not yield positive results and often yields negative results, so they developed a means of tackling such issues indirectly, for example through the use of teaching stories and poetry, so as not to raise the aspirant's hackles and make him or her unnecessarily and doggedly defensive.

One of the aims of the mystics is to transcend the Commanding Self and the unbridled ego and free us from its shackles. The situation might be likened to that of a disenfranchised princess, true royalty, locked and heavily guarded in a dark dungeon inside a castle. In order to affect an escape, messages and materials have to be smuggled into the prison past the guards, sometimes using the unwitting guards, perhaps by appealing to and making use of their desires, such as their greed, and their undoubted talents and resources. They may be led to believe that this is an interesting exercise or swash-buckling adventure, that progress is in their best interests, that there is something, some reward, in it for them, and they may be encouraged to 'go with it' or at least turn a blind eye. In actuality, these elements are gradually being turned around and transformed and will eventually assist in staging a series of 'test runs' and 'coups'.

One of the methods that the Sufis use to aid this process are teaching stories. There's a tale in Idries Shah's The Magic Monastery which illustrates the situation, models or exemplifies a successful escape, and -- given in the form of a teaching story with successive layers of deep meaning -- in itself explains and forms part of the process of smuggling materials in past the subject's intellect, censors and conditioning.

A man was once sent to prison for life for something which he had not done.

When he had behaved in an exemplary way for some months, his jailers began to regard him as a model prisoner.

He was allowed to make his cell a little more comfortable; and his wife sent him a prayer-carpet which she had herself woven.

When several more months had passed, this man said to his guards: “I am a metalworker, and you are badly paid. If you can get me a few tools and some pieces of tin, I will make small decorative objects, which you can take to the market and sell. We could split the proceeds, to the advantage of both parties.”

The guards agreed, and presently the smith was producing finely-wrought objects whose sale added to everyone's well-being.

Then, one day, when the jailers went to the cell, the man had gone. They concluded that he must have been a magician.

After many years when the error of the sentence had been discovered and the man was pardoned and out of hiding, the king of that country called him and asked him how he had escaped.

The tinsmith said: “Real escape is possible only with the correct concurrence of factors. My wife found the locksmith who had made the lock on my cell, and other locks throughout the prison. She embroidered the interior designs of the locks in the rug which she sent me, on the spot where the head is prostrated in prayer. She relied upon me to register this design and to realize that it was the wards of the locks. It was necessary for me to get materials with which to make the keys, and to be able to hammer and work metal in my cell. I had to enlist the greed and need of the guards, so that there would be no suspicion. That is the story of my escape.”

There's another story in Idries Shah's seminal work The Sufis which illustrates the smuggling process.

Because the average person thinks in patterns and cannot accommodate himself to a really different point of view, he loses a great deal of the meaning of life. He may live, even progress, but he cannot understand all that is going on. The story of the smuggler makes this very clear:

Nasrudin used to take his donkey across a frontier every day, with the panniers loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again. They searched his person, sifted the straw, steeped it in water, even burned it from time to time. Meanwhile he was becoming visibly more and more prosperous.

Then he retired and went to live in another country. Here one of the customs offices met him, years later.

“You can tell me now, Nasrudin,” he said. “Whatever was it that you were smuggling, when we could never catch you out?”

“Donkeys,” said Nasrudin.

A third tale, The Indian Bird by Rumi in Idries Shah's The Way of the Sufi, also illustrates the issue and its ingenious resolution:

A merchant had a bird in a cage. He was going to India, the land from which the bird came, and asked him whether he could bring anything back for him. The bird asked for his freedom, but was refused. So he asked the merchant to visit a jungle in India and announce his captivity to the free birds who were there.

The merchant did so, and no sooner had he spoken than a wild bird, just like his own, fell senseless out of a tree on to the ground. The merchant thought that this must be a relative of his own bird, and felt sad that he should have caused this death.

When he got home, the bird asked him whether he had brought good news from India. “No,” said the merchant, “I fear that my news is bad. One of your relations collapsed and fell at my feet as soon as I mentioned your captivity.”

As soon as these words were spoken the merchant's bird collapsed and fell to the bottom of the cage.

“The news of his kinsman's death has killed him too,” thought the merchant. Sorrowfully he picked up the bird and put it on the window-sill. At once the bird revived and flew to a near-by tree. “Now you know,” he said, “that what you thought was disaster was in fact good news for me. And how the message, the suggestion how to behave in order to free myself, was transmitted to me through you, my captor.” And he flew away, free at last.

As well as smuggling messages in, a kind of metalanguage is being taught and developed in the process, so that messages may be smuggled out and two-way communication may be established, beginning the groundwork that will ultimately lead to emancipation, reunion and the re-establishment of a truly wise and loving, and rightly guided, regime.

Sources: The Magic Monastery, The Sufis and The Way of the Sufi Idries Shah, Octagon Press.
Painting: Prisoners Exercising (After Doré) by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890).

Break free from the template lifestyle

2009-11-25T07:11:00.000-08:00

Cody McKibben is passionate to help people break free from the template lifestyle, creating their own entrepreneurial ventures, living remarkable lives and doing good for others.

Cody writes: "I started Thrilling Heroics in 2006 to encourage young professionals and entrepreneurs to pursue an unorthodox, exciting lifestyle and career, strive for excellence, and make a positive difference in the world! I’m passionate about helping people break free from the conventional template lifestyle—liberating themselves from traditional mindsets about work, creating their own entrepreneurial ventures, living remarkable lives, and doing good for others.

"Follow along with my (mis)adventures and watch as I attempt to sidestep the traditional corporate world, concentrate on personal growth, travel around the world, and create an ideal lifestyle! We’ll talk about personal development, vagabond travel, productivity, personal finance, web entrepreneurship, lifestyle design and more."

To find out more, check out Cody's web site, ThrillingHeroics.com.

Nasrudin: The wisdom of folly

2009-11-25T06:20:00.000-08:00

A newspaperman was interviewing Mulla Nasrudin on his 105th birthday. He noticed that the Mulla was wearing a rabbit's foot on his key chain. "You don't mean to tell me," said the newspaperman, "that a man of your experience still believes in that old and childish superstition?"

"Certainly not," said Nasrudin, "but my wife tells me it is supposed to bring you luck whether you believe in it or not."

~ From Otoons - Wisdom of Folly: 200 Jokes of Mulla Nasruddin.

A journey of a thousand miles ...

2009-11-22T06:28:00.000-08:00

Today is an important anniversary for me. As Confucius once said: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step", and a few years ago -- after wandering around in the wilderness for over two decades -- I finally took my first step in the right direction. I didn't know it at the time (though I thought and felt that I knew), but now, looking back, it's quite clear that this was a pivotal moment for me. What follows is what I wrote at the time but have been unable to publish, until now ...

I had a long, serious conversation with Tenzing Jangbu Rinchen last night as I lay in bed meditating, winding down from a long and particularly taxing day, prior to falling asleep. I can go for weeks without hearing from Tenzing and then it's one meeting after another, the way three buses arrive at the same stop one behind the other. Of course, it could be that Tenzing is there by my side all along and that it's only at these certain -- or rather uncertain -- times that I'm aware of his presence. Or maybe it's that we meet as necessity determines, for its own sufficient reasons?

For some time now I've been vacillating. Several years ago (a good few more than I care to recall), having read a couple of his works, I wrote to Tenzing, though not really expecting a reply I put the matter out of my mind. My head was full of big, neon-flashing ideas at the time and this was just one more of them: just prior to writing to Tenzing, I'd also written to an address c/o the British Museum in London, enquiring about the possibility of joining a Wiccan coven and had tried to contact AMORC (the Rosicrucians). As fortune would have it, when I read through a newsletter that the witches sent me, I was rather put off by all the adverts for Chaos Magick and other somewhat dark arts, and being aware of my own suggestibility I decided that I could do without that kind of thing rattling around in my then fragile psyche. As for AMORC, they never did reply.

Six months later, I heard back from Tenzing. He apologized for not having responded sooner, explaining that he'd been away at his mountain retreat, at some unspecified location in the mountains to the north of his homeland, Narayana, and had only just returned to Sher Point. I say Narayana, indeed I say Tenzing, for the sake of narration, though I should be straight with you and reveal that these names and places have been changed, for reasons best known to Tenzing himself.

In this first, rather short letter, Tenzing thanked me for writing to him, asked me to forward brief details of my previous interests and mentioned a list of recommended reading. As it turned out, there was no such list enclosed, and I wasn't sure if this was merely an oversight or was actually meant to send me a message. But in any case, I'd found Tenzing's books by that time and had a catalogue from his publisher.

It was to be another twelve months before I heard from Tenzing again and this time his reply took up two whole sides of dense and faltering manual typewriting. Clearly he'd typed the letter himself rather than leaving it to a secretary. Having taken the trouble to reply and at such length (and, it has to be said, with such clear insight), I had expected that Tenzing might invite me to meet him, or perhaps meet with one of his deputies. But quite unexpectedly he pointed me toward the books of another mystical school, and suggested that I should study their works; if I was taken by what I read, to contact them, and to occasionally write to him to keep him posted about any significant developments. That was quite a challenge in itself, I can tell you, because things were bubbling up in me all the time, any of which might have been (or not been) significant, and I had a whole -- and growing -- heap of unanswered questions. Or perhaps these were my own 'contradictions' emerging, or nothing more than froth on the surface of the deep ocean?

Time to move on ... again

Just as I was getting settled in with the Yogi Tenzing had sent me to, and becoming fairly proficient at the exercises I'd been assigned, Tenzing wrote back, suggesting though not requiring that I break my ties with this man and turn my attentions to another school, details of which he enclosed in his letter. This was a pattern to be repeated several times over the course of many years, and not once in all that time did Tenzing invite me to meet him or offer any activities or exercises of his own. He didn't even recommend any of his own books to me, though of course I read all twelve of his books and several written by his students within days of their being published. As a result of moving on and on in this way, even after these many years I didn't possess a single scrap of paper, a coloured belt or chevrons that I could wave around to show that I'd actually made any progress. Nor was there any kind of endorsement: everything I did had to stand unsupported or fall on its own merit. All I could maybe say about my inexplicable life, and it was still a big maybe, was that I seemed to be slowly changing as time went by. And yet even that might be accounted for in terms of simply gaining life experience or quite naturally maturing.

Here I am, twenty one years on. I've never met Tenzing, though I have bumped into a couple of folk who share an interest in his books. I've never been to his mountain retreat. I've only rarely experienced any kind of mind-blowing, nor mind-f***ing experience, and yet here I am, having a serious conversation with the guy as if we're old chums chatting at the local pub. And, no, you're not alone in thinking maybe I'm just making up the conversation in my mind; that thought always remains a possibility, except for the fact that the guy on the other end of the conversation isn't there pandering to my ego, he's telling me things that I don't know and need to know.

I did ask Tenzing about the issue once: why I couldn't just meet him and take some kind of course like the regular folk (not that I was complaining at my lot, I introduced the question as an aside, in a kind of dispassionate and matter of fact way), but he said that in my case this was not indicated and that -- quote -- alternative [and unspecified] arrangements had been made in my case -- unquote. I said it was like some kind of long-distance love affair and that just cracked Tenzing up. It had us both in stitches for some strange reason and the tears were streaming down my face: I mean tears of unbridled joy, not sadness.

A step too far

Last night, the topic of conversation was quite serious and, as I said earlier, I've been vacillating for some time. In my last 'assignment', some five years previously, Tenzing had sent me to study with some seriously heavy-duty dudes and I had reached a rather protracted and frustrating impasse. I was close to what appeared to me to be a point of no return, and it was all to do with making a final and irrevocable commitment to the Path. I was required to 'be with your teacher like the corpse in the hands of the washer'. The matter was not open to debate nor put to a vote: I was to either shape up or ship out. Period. And that was a step further than I was prepared to go. There appeared to be just the one way out, and that was to turn my back on the world, surrender my ego and, forsaking all others, commit myself wholeheartedly to loving and being the faithful instrument of God. And I don't mean just loving God but utterly committing to and being annihilated in an all-consuming Union. For some reason this reminds me of the story of the marriage between the mouse and the elephant. The elephant died from its exertions on the wedding night and the mouse sighed: "To think that I exchanged a moment's pleasure for a lifetime of digging a grave."

I could picture Tenzing in front of me, nodding solemnly and patting me gently and reassuringly on the shoulder. "Etienne", he said to me at length. "There's no denying that theirs is a genuine Way, but this is their way: to turn their back on all else and settle for nothing short of the Absolute. You know me better than that and it should come as no great surprise to you when I tell you that our way -- the Way of the Sarmouni -- is not to turn our backs on the world but conversely to thankfully, lovingly and joyously embrace the world and those in it; though of course ever-remembering the true Source of this wondrous provision."

This was the first time that Tenzing had put a name to the tradition he represented -- the Sarmouni. He usually spoke in generic terms of the Tradition, the Path or the Way and of 'People Like Us'. Apparently the word meant 'the bees' and their task or service involved, in part, the collection of a subtle, living substance which might be likened to nectar, the transformation of this substance into 'honey', its storage, and the subsequent redistribution of the honey in times of need.

"As for the annihilation of the ego," Tenzing continued: "yes I can see how that might fill you with an almost primordial fear. Again, please rest assured that this is their way, not ours. There are many ways to skin a cat, as the saying goes. Our way is not to obliterate the ego (I mean, what a waste of potential), but to get the ego on our side; to transform it, and to harness its undoubted though wayward capabilities and its quite astounding capacity, for higher purposes."

A parting of the ways

"My friend," the Master concluded: "It's time for you to beg leave of our Friends, to bid them a fond and thankful farewell, and to move on once more."

Tenzing corrected himself. "I should perhaps clarify what I mean by that, Etienne. I mean leave behind their particular stream; as for the Friends themselves and what they represent, they will forever be in your heart."

The Master paused and smiled. "And now, my dear, I suggest you get your beauty sleep. I'll be in touch ..."

As Tenzing told me these things, my eyes filled with tears. I let out a huge and deeply moving sigh of relief, unaware until that moment just how much pent-up energy and emotion I had accumulated over the years. And when I finally recovered my composure, within minutes I sank into a wonderful, blissful sleep.

New beginnings

Bright and early this morning I received a phone call, and though it came as a shock having spent so many years in the wilderness, as it were, still it came as no great surprise. It was Tenzing, true as ever to his word, and he suggested that the time had at last come for us to profitably meet. And again, feeling that at long last my work had finally brought forth the first stirrings of real potential, perhaps making the first step in the right direction, I am not ashamed to say that the tears welled up in me.

Etienne de L'Amour
22 November, some years ago.

Only now, some time after the event with the embargo lifted in part (with the exception of names, places and the details of certain events which must remain indefinitely obfuscated), can I bring myself to relate these encounters with the Master of the Way, Tenzing Jangbu Rinchen.

Painting: Brudeferden i Hardanger (Bridal journey in Hardanger) by Adolph Tidemand (Norway 1814–1876) and Hans Gude (Norway 1825-1903).

Every cloud has a silver lining

2009-11-21T05:52:00.000-08:00

It's no coincidence that Sher Point, the metropolis of the Freelands, is an anagram of 'the prison', nor is the name 'the Freelands' itself free from a certain irony. The Sirians, who had originally helped instigate the Eden Project, had a hand in this and they were not without a sense of humour, albeit slightly twisted.

Nor is it coincidental that the words contain within them 'psion', which is associated with faculties such as telepathy. Such faculties did indeed play a part in the original project when people, though some stages removed from Unity or Reality, were nevertheless still able to benefit from it. However with the catastrophic loss of the Link to the Source, though vestiges of such abilities remained as a kind of by-product of spiritual development (incorrectly prized by some), they were largely lost to the masses.

Decay slowly but surely spread through the Eden Project, to the point that the experiment was largely abandoned and the realm ultimately came to be known more fittingly as the Shadowlands.

Sin and the Shadowlands have become, quite incorrectly, synonymous, and several globally organized religious institutions have emerged in the Shadowlands which hold amongst their basic premises the dogma that all people born in the Shadowlands are hapless sinners in need of their particular trademarked brand of grace and salvation. But the truth of the matter is rather more complex. What is seen as black and white by the religionists and the authoritarians might better be likened to a thousand and one shades of grey; or even glorious technicolour.

You see, the degeneration, bad as it was, was further exacerbated by what is now seen in retrospect as a foolhardy policy of biblical proportions: the decision to use the Shadowlands as a kind of pan-galactic therapy centre and later penitentiary, a dumping ground for the dross and lame ducks that other, extraterrestrial communities wished to off-load. It had been somewhat optimistically believed that the penitents would be favourably affected by contact with and immersion in the native community, and this was indeed the case before the Link began to falter. But the sheer number and escalating levels of depravity of the reprobates transported to the Shadowlands ensured that the very converse occurred and they helped to drag the culture down still further.

Alas, movements which once possessed a live dynamic so often succumb themselves and become sometimes grotesquely twisted, fossilised relics and institutions. But fortunately there have always been some who have been able to Remember and to keep the spark or eternal flame alive through the centuries. Tenzing Jangbu Rinchen, a representative of the perennial tradition, is one of those people, and fortunately he is not alone. Truth be told, and rest assured, we are never alone.

Paradigm paralysis

2009-11-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

At an on-line forum, one of the correspondents recently defended the behaviour of a contemporary Sufi master who has been criticized by certain parties over the years and allegedly shown to be in some ways unreliable. The correspondent prefaced his post by a hopefully tongue-in-cheek "As another poster frequently says, 'my thoughts on the matter are ...'" and then went on to quote verbatim from the Sufi's own work:

Why the dervish hides himself

Rumi’s son asked him:

‘How and why is the dervish hidden? Is this done by superficial disguise? Is there something within himself which he conceals?’

The Master said:

‘It might be done in any way. Some write love-poems, and people think that they mean ordinary love. The dervish may hide his true position in the Way by adopting a calling. There are writers; and some, like Baba Farid, are traders. Still others follow various different outer activities.

‘This may be done for the sake of defence against the shallow. Some purposely act in a manner which society might disapprove.

‘The Prophet has therefore said: “God has hidden the Men of Greatest Knowledge.”

‘A device may be adopted by the Followers of the Way to gain peace, when they might otherwise be hindered.’

The master then recited:

Ever-knowing – as they hide and seek.
Appearing other than they are – to the ordinary man;
In inward light they roam – making miracles come to pass.
Yet they are really known – to none.

Munaqib el-Arifin.

The correspondent went on ...

Man believes what he thinks is true

Teaching, as was his custom, during the ordinary business of life, Sheikh Abu Tahir Harami rode his donkey one day into a market-place, a disciple following behind.

At the sight of him, a man called out: "Look, here come the ancient unbeliever!"

Harami's pupil, his wrath aroused, shouted at the defamer. Before long there was a fierce altercation in progress.

The Sufi calmed his desciple, saying: "If you cease this tumult, I will show you how you can escape this kind of trouble."

They went together to the old man's house. The sheikh told his follower to bring him a box of letters. "Look at these. They are all letters addressed to me. But they are all couched in different terms. Here someone calls me 'Sheikh of Islam' ; there, 'Sublime Teacher'. Another says I am the 'Wise One of the Twin Sancturies'. And there are others."

'Observe how each styles me in accordance with what he considers me to be. But I am none of these things. Each man calls another just what he thinks him to be. This is what the unfortunate one in the market-place has just done. And yet you take exception to it. Why do you do so - since it is the general rule of life?'

Paradigm

My own thoughts on the matter are these: Just how objective is it for the behaviour of the chief advocate and exemplar of a paradigm (a closed, self-referential system) to be accounted for by material he himself has chosen, and re-presented by an adherent of that self-same paradigm?

All it shows is that paradigms can possess and display what might be called "inner consistency", not that they are de facto true (which is not to say that in the event what has been written is not true).

Take what is in my hand

Another classic method used by the Sufis to point to the essential reality or account for behaviour which might seem strange to the uninitiated (whichever way you choose to look at the matter) is their claim that the actions of the Sufi can only be understood from within the Sufi Way and not by externalists ignorant of the Sufi's reality. So in Shah's case, one of his stock arguments would be to quote the famous Sufi Jalaluddin Rumi as saying "Don't look at my outward form, but take what is in my hand" (don't look at the often-deceptive superficialities but at the reality which may be hidden from you). And the fact that Shah had these very words inscribed on his gravestone would subsequently be used by his supporters to similarly defend his actions -- or indeed their own actions -- by suggesting ignorance on the part of disenfranchised externalists.

A question

Of course, some of the things that Shah did make him appear unreliable, and this begs the question, posed by the correspondent, to be fair: Why did Shah do these things? His answer was: "Is this not what Shah is asking? By being unreliable, he is saying 'you do the math' and showing the necessity of doubt in the process of learning, rather than becoming a believer. He is not trying to gather fans but to foster independent thinkers."

Excerpts from The Way of the Sufi by Idries Shah, published by Octagon Press.
See also Idries Shah's Sufi Paradigm (pdf).

Waiting for inspiration: an excerpt

2009-11-20T06:17:00.000-08:00

The woman exchanged glances with Dzoldzaya, then turned back to Conrad. “A little birdie tells me you've been chomping at the bit to have a go at writing some fiction ...”

“Chomping at the bit? Driving myself to distraction, more like. I have two characters sketched out in my head and it's quite bizarre, really. There must be a million and one possibilities for these characters, and yet my mind is completely blank and has been blank for the past couple of weeks. For the life of me, I can't think of a single storyline that appeals to me.”

“You mean you're spoilt for choice?”

“I wish I was. I'm not sure how to put it, really. I can think of a few possibilities for the characters, yet nothing springs to mind that really appeals to me. There seems to be some kind of mental block. I was hoping that maybe my subconscious might be clanking and whirring away in the background and that all of a sudden some wonderful idea might present itself to me in an 'Aha!' moment, but this hasn't happened. As I say, it's just a blank.”

Rosalie nodded thoughtfully. “Inspiration can be a wonderful thing, but it can also be quite fickle, Conrad. If you want to be able to call on inspiration reliably then you need to work on it with regularity. Someone once said that if you only go out with a bucket to collect water when it's raining, sometimes you'll get water. But if you go out with your bucket every day, even when it's not raining, sometimes you'll catch unexpected rain. And also, a strange thing may happen: that the very act of going out with your bucket may actually provoke such rain.”

“Mmm, that's a new one on me,” he said. “And it sounds interesting, thanks.”

“As for the infinite possibilities,” Rosalie continued, “I've had similar experiences with that awful blank white page and 'a million and one possibilities', Conrad. Though it might seem strange to you, to the imagination, having a million and one possibilities is pretty much the same, and as useful, as having none at all.”

“What I'd suggest is that you give your imagination something specific to work on and embroider. Yes, I mean actually reduce your options. I'd suggest that you simply start writing something, almost anything, involving your characters, to provide a basic context to which content may be added. It doesn't have to be deep and meaningful or stupendously exciting, just some ordinary, everyday activity that won't unduly sway the storyline or pre-determine where it heads and hem you in later on, but which simply offers potential openings, even if you don't know what those openings might be. It doesn't have to be the start of the book; what you write can be a scene from any point in the book and you may even choose to scrap or rewrite the scene at a later date. Writers sometimes become very attached to what they've already written, their 'baby' as it were, as if it's cast in concrete and can't be changed. I'm sure you're aware of this tendency. Though perfectly understandable, this is patent nonsense, of course.”

Excerpted from Time and Time Again.
Painting: Lost in Thought by James Carroll Beckwith (1852–1917)

Trying and doing

2009-11-20T05:38:00.000-08:00

In his blog, 1001 Nights in Cairo, Robert Twigger has a piece about the writer and poet Charles Bukowski. On his gravestone, Bukowski had inscribed the advice to other writers: "Don't Try".

Twigger explains that "what Bukowski meant was: ‘do’ don’t ‘try to do’. I think of ‘trying’ as a kind of posture, encouraged at school and at home, by over eager teachers and parents. The kids who act and look keenest, while keeping a weather eye on the other kids so as not to appear as creeps, get ahead. They learn first and foremost how to appear to be ‘trying hard’. They get rewarded with attention for looking interested, for 'trying'. But life is about doing not trying."

This invokes a particular resonance for me: I spent a great deal of time trying hard as I was growing up. It was drummed into me, with the frequent warning "You'll have to pull your socks up, unless you want to end up as a dustbin man".

What riled me at the time was my mother or father asking me "What are you trying to do?" I'd get all defensive and respond: "I'm not trying to do anything, I am doing." Another thing that annoyed me was that having explained what I was doing, my father would invariably find something about my work to pick holes in, and my mother had a tendency to titter, as if to say: "well, you have to humour the poor thing."

These days I'd just take this kind of thing in my stride, as I'm no longer reliant on their approval, nor on their disapproval. But I have to say that at the time it hurt, and I developed two main ways of coping with this: failing to complete projects and simply keeping my projects under wraps. If I didn't have a completed project to show off, or didn't let on what I was working on, then I wouldn't be criticized: at least that what's what I hoped. In the event, this had a knock-on effect, with my father then complaining that I'd become so secretive.

At the time all this was a big deal to me, and it drove a wedge between us, especially as a rebellious teenager. But as the years went by we all changed: I became less of a dreamer, a little more mature, considerate and thankful, and they also mellowed and became more accepting, and we put our former differences behind us and again grew closer.

I think that it's only when you go through the joys and the challenges of raising your own children that you really wake up and appreciate your own parents' love, patience, efforts and sacrifices, and that they did the best they could to raise you, with your best interests at heart.

Running high

2009-11-19T02:39:00.000-08:00

The river's running high today, swollen by the torrential rain of recent days and by the incoming tide. I see that the new flood gates at the park entrance are still open, which is reassuring. However, since the river is tidal and the town is apparently only seven metres above sea level, it is a little worrying to hear reports that global warming may cause sea levels to rise by as much as six metres in the coming years.

Not being a wealthy man, I can't afford to relocate to the hills, and I'm hoping that the architect factored in a sufficient wide safety margin.

I can see millions being displaced in the not-so-distant future -- some through being inundated by flood water and others for dire lack of fresh water.

A helping hand: an excerpt from Sher Point

2009-11-18T08:18:00.000-08:00

As [Jeanine] turned the next page, she found that Tenzing had quite abruptly and with little warning switched from a more didactic description of the study to illustrating what he wanted to say through the use of stories. One tale in particular found an inner resonance with her. It told of a young girl who'd been orphaned as a child and taken in by a poor family who scraped a life together fishing. She found work as a lowly servant at the king's palace, but due to the intrigues of another in the household, who had taken a dislike to her, the girl found herself accused of a crime and wrongly imprisoned in the cold dungeons of the castle by the king.

To cut a long story sort, word had soon reached her foster parents of her imprisonment and when every other means of obtaining her release had been tried, to no avail, and they were exhausted, they happened to mention their daughter's plight to an old wandering holy man, asking him to pray for the girl's release.

This master of the Way, being a holy man, was granted access to the girl to cater for her religious needs after presenting himself to the king and successfully arguing his case.

He visited her many times over the coming months until the guards became quite used to his comings and goings. At first they used to question the man, but as he always gave such an incoherent reply, the ramblings of a deranged holy man, and as he stank to high heaven, after a time the guards simply waved him through.

Then one day, the holy man failed to turn up as expected and come the evening when it was time to take the girl her bread and water, they found her lying in a corner of the cell covered by a thin blanket. When she did not respond, one of the guards pulled back the blanket. To his astonishment he discovered that it was the old holy man, naked as a jay bird, and that the girl had escaped.

And when they questioned the old man about the escape, he told them that the girl had dressed herself in his coarse woollen robes, with her hair tied back and her hood up to hide her features, and had simply walked out of the prison. The guards had become so used to his comings and goings, and his incoherent grunting, that they'd let her pass without question.

“Well,” declared the king when word of what had happened reached him. “The old man needn't think that any advantage has been gained from the escape. Lock him up in the girl's place and let him serve out her sentence. No, double the sentence.”

“In fact, throw away the ruddy key.”

But the very next day, when the guards came to check on the old man, they found that he had quietly passed away in his sleep, knowing beforehand that his time had almost come. So what had he really lost in order that the girl should gain her freedom?

Excerpted from Sher Point: Escape from the Shadowlands.
Painting: Porträt des Titus in Mönchkleider by Rembrandt.

Up the Swanee

2009-11-18T06:01:00.000-08:00

I lost my internet connection on Monday and well into Tuesday: the connection kept dropping every now and again and then with increasing frequency. At first I thought it was an outage in my local area, but later discovered it was my broadband router.

The biggest issue that I faced was that so many of the resources I'd come to rely on, such as a google search of 'BT broadband service status' are themselves on-line and were, of course, inaccessible. Fortunately (after a phone call to a remote call centre which threw me for a time as the guy mentioned that there were problems in my area and to try again later), I managed to get on-line long enough to find BTcare on Twitter and sent them an email. They very kindly phoned back, I installed a spare, newer router that BT had at some time sent me for some unexplained reason, reconfigured that and got back on-line, with many thanks.

For some time I'd been holding back from upgrading my router as it had taken me some time to configure it to allow folk to access the web site I run at sarmouni.dyndns.org and I was worried that I might not be able to figure out how to configure the new router. I also tend to follow the old and often wise adage: "If it ain't broke[n], don't fix it" (as doing so can have unforeseen consequences and leave you worse off than if you'd left well alone). As it turned out, these worries were completely groundless and the new router was a joy to reconfigure and has more, and more easily accessible, features than the old.

One thing that again came to mind is just how out on a limb we are technologically. A few years back, I might have taken out my oscilloscope, multi-meter, digital probe and soldering iron and had a go at fixing a piece of electronic gear myself, but not nowadays. The days of hobby electronics have long since passed as things have got more and more integrated and inaccessible to all but the professional with access to sophisticated test gear (that's if there's any point in fixing a piece of gear: more and more these days it seems to be a matter of simply ditching the old item and replacing it).

Whilst the technological infrastructure is intact, I guess we're fine, but take away one or two of the key elements in the "house of cards" we've built, and we'd be "up the Swanee" [River], as my father would say (up the creek without a paddle).

These days, how many of us could do something as simple as making our own toothbrush, for example? And yet for centuries, folk in Africa and the Middle East have simply gone out and found a "toothbrush plant", cut off a chew stick and used that.

I recently came across this entry by E J Neiburger in the Journal of the Massachusetts Dental Society: "The toothbrush plant is a low-growing shrub that is found throughout Africa and the Middle East. It is used by the native peoples as a chew stick for cleaning their teeth. When the end of the wood is chewed, it becomes frayed and can be used as a natural brush that delivers therapeutic minerals and chemicals, present in the wood fiber to the teeth and gingiva. The use of this wood for oral care could be a great benefit to people in industrialized nations."

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Quotation source: Journal of the Massachusetts Dental Society. 01/01/2009; 58(2):30-2. ISSN: 0025-4800.
Painting: River view or Riviergezicht met verschillende schepen links op de achtergrond een boerderij by Jeronymus van Diest (II).

Jam and bread

2009-11-15T08:33:00.000-08:00

Something a friend recently wrote at an on-line forum reminded me how times have changed. An American, he wrote: "Don't forget the jam for the toast. The jam on toast along with the milk in afternoon tea was most important to the pre-WWII English diet for the nutritionally handicapped."

Many a true word spoken is spoken in jest, as the saying goes. It brought back memories of my own childhood in an era of grow your own, bake your own, make do and mend. Yes, "jam and bread" was a favourite standby. My parents did what they could, going out of the way to make sure we didn't go short, but times were still relatively hard. My mother would (and always did) collect the juices from roasted meat and what didn't go into the gravy, the fat or "dripping", got saved in a pot. Sometimes it was used in place of lard for frying and sometimes it was eaten. Every now and again we would have "bread and dripping" ... ie would spread the dripping on bread (and no, I don't mean in place of butter, but in place of butter and any more nutritious sandwich content).

This was post-WW2, though after they stopped food rationing, but I was pretty lucky: a few years earlier, my sisters -- early baby boomers and older than me -- came out in boils and had to go to the hospital for a course of "sun ray treatment" due to nutritional deficits.

Some of this childhood and youth experience has found its way into the novels, especially scenes set in the Outlands in Sher Point: Escape from the Shadowlands and In Search of Destiny.

See Etienne de L'Amour's page at the sarmouni web site.

Dithering like a beggar on the threshold

2009-11-14T12:19:00.000-08:00

I began studying the works of the Sufis around 1986, following a psychological meltdown (a kind of kundalini experience gone wrong for one who was totally ill-prepared) and the realization that I had to simply and drastically change my hectic and complicated way of life. I was in a book shop, without any clear idea of what I was looking for when I just "stumbled upon" Idries Shah's The Way of the Sufi tucked away, out of place, at the end of one of the bottom shelves.

Of little account in itself, in juxtaposition with other chance events it was one of those moments which Doris Lessing once told me "would seem extraordinary if it hadn't happened so many times before."

It took a while before I began to appreciate the things that the Sufis were saying: I found the Sufi lark to be what you might call an "acquired taste". Shah published many excellent teaching stories and ancillary books extolling the virtues of the "work for the Work" (as opposed to the Work for oneself or for the group), however, and these whet my appetite, kept my interest and -- chiefly since the actual thing was kept inaccessible to most people -- built up my determination to eventually meet Shah and become a Sufi myself. A thing is often prized more for its scarcity, inaccessibility, exotic nature, intellectual stimulation, bragging rights or emotional "sex appeal", you might say, than for its intrinsic worth. And as far as the Sufis are concerned, what they have to offer -- true Love and freedom from the prison of egotism and conditioning -- is a gem beyond price.

I don't know why it was, but it wasn't until years later that it dawned on me that the Sufi lark isn't all about work for the Work (the Sufi enterprise). At the end of the day, it's about submitting yourself and placing your trust wholeheartedly in your teacher; and an all-consuming Love for Truth, for Reality and for God.

So here I am, 23 years since I first stumbled upon the way; 13 years after Shah's death, and like many others I've come across, unable to turn my back on the Way. 23 years on and I'm hovering on the threshold: for some reason unwilling to make that next -- or perhaps first -- step and devote myself unreservedly and all-consumingly to Reality, Truth, God -- call it what you will. Unwilling to move on and yet seemingly unable to turn back. Is it just the same kind of mechanism that keeps folk playing the lottery, because of the time and energy that they feel they've invested and are loath to discard?

For a time, until Shah's son Tahir revealed that his father Idries had told him that his books were to be considered his successor, I and a good few others were waiting out what Doris Lessing termed the "interregnum". Waiting for a successor to come along and show us the way home. And now I and others are perhaps waiting for another to come along and take us under their wing. Some have taken up that option; others have not.

But looking at the modern, universal, western approach that Shah adopted and comparing that to the alternatives that abound, many of which seem so traditional or tied to Islam, still I dither like a beggar on the threshold.

Painting: Alms to the Poor by Michel Drolling.

Sources of inspiration

2009-11-14T10:19:00.000-08:00

I would say that the primary inspiration for my works has been the writer Idries Shah who did so much to introduce the Way of the Sufi mystic to western audiences from around 1960 to the present day, beyond his death in 1996. One of the ideas of which he wrote was that the realm we live in and call the 'real world' (the concrete, physical plane) is in fact a lesser world of decay and degeneration, and that beyond that, and our destiny, is what the Sufis call the Real World; that behind the everyday world of illusion lies a blueprint or design (a naqsh) in the Real. C.S. Lewis mentions the shadowlands in a similar vein.

This idea in turn inspired one of Shah's pupils, the author Doris Lessing who wrote in her Canopus in Argos series of a catastrophe of cosmic proportions severely and adversely affecting our link to the Source, which provides us with a higher nutrition and higher contact.

Shah encouraged certain books to be written by students and personalities associated with his work (and also himself wrote works using pseudonyms) and I've found addition inspiration in these works, such as Bashir M. Dervish's Journeys with a Sufi Master; Omar Michael Burke's Among the Dervishes; Ernest Scott's The People of the Secret; and also Desmond R. Martin's Account of the Sarmoun Brotherhood, a mystical hidden community said to reside in the mountains of Afghanistan (also known to the mystic George Ivanovich Gurdjieff as the Sarmoung).

Prior to my involvement with the Sufis, I was also inspired by the likes of [the fraudulent] T. Lobsang Rampa's The Third Eye; Carlos Castaneda's teachings of Don Juan; the explorer and theosophist Alexander David-Neel's With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet; Helena Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine; James Hilton's Lost Horizon (twice made into a film); and by the publications and practises of British Buddhist and Zen societies.

These early interests lost their appeal once my studies with the Sufis began to kick in. Indeed during that time I felt so many of my assumptions, beliefs and conditioning being slowly eroded, challenged or at times unceremoniously sandblasted. The last thing the Sufi mystics do is pander to or collude with the ego or Commanding Self: quite the converse.

This went on until at one point, around the time of Shah's death in 1996, I was no longer sure who I really was any more; beyond the "black hole" that had been me: it was so much more a process of unlearning and uncovering than learning or adding to the stock of information and opinion that lay folk call knowledge. It wasn't until perhaps a decade after Shah's death that I was again able to look at these former interests with fresh, new eyes.

Painting: Inspiration by Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

The Shadowlands: Background information

2009-11-14T05:34:00.000-08:00

Seven of the works by Etienne de L'Amour, with the exception of Thank You, I Understand,(2) are set in the realm known as the Shadowlands.

In a previous millenium a catastrophe struck the lands which were originally known as the Eden Project. The linkage with the Source, vital for the continuing evolution of humanity, was largely lost, though it is always subject to ebb and flow, and the lands -- now known as the Shadowlands -- and the people have largely fallen into a state of decay and degeneration.(1)(3)

In the west are the Freelands, so called; still further west is Gothgorian, the centre of a nationalist uprising.(4) To the north are the Outlands, which has been held back, like a land locked in time, and suffered greatly following reparations and sanctions imposed upon its people at the end of the second of the two great wars. To the east is the mystical, mountainous kingdom of Narayana. Still further to the south east of Narayana is Gilgamar, a theocracy largely run by the lamas;(5) and south of that is Erigwid, a hot house for the cultivation of religious zealots.(5) To the east of Narayana is Angbath, land of the bizarre cult of the Doyen Mugwash.(6)
South of the Freelands is Ingmar, the setting for The Host and the Guests which explores various manifestations of "host" and "guest".(7)

Sher Point is the sprawling metropolis of the Freelands and it is here that the Master of the mystical Way, Tenzing Jangbu Rinchen, directs a clandestine network and a residential study centre to help those in need. Part of the work, for example, involves smuggling Outlanders into the Freelands, since the sometimes Draconian Freeland authorities make it near impossible for Outlanders to acquire travel visas and work permits. Tenzing splits his time between his centre Foxholes, just outside Sher Point, and Abshar, a secret mountain community or retreat to the north of Narayana.

In order of publication, see:
(1) Sher Point: Escape from the Shadowlands, the first book in the series introducing these things. You can find it at Novels by Etienne de L'Amour at the Sher Point Publications UK web site.
(2) Thank You, I Understand.
(3) In Search of Destiny.
(4) The Lucian Uprising.
(5) Time and Time Again.
(6) The Gift.
(7) The Host and the Guests.
(8) Whisperings of Love.

Please be aware that some of the works deal with adult themes and are marked as such in the write-ups on the web site.

Welcome

2009-11-14T04:23:00.001-08:00

Welcome! Although it's not my real name, I often write under the nom de plume Etienne de L'Amour. I've authored several books in the genre of "mystical adventure" or "mystical faction" which is, as the name suggests, a blend of fact and fiction, or an extrapolation of fiction from basic fact, about mystical or spiritual themes.

Most of the books are set in a realm known as the Shadowlands. See the next post for some background information.

You won't find my work in the shops, at the moment they're solely available on-line at Sher Point Publications UK, and in the files the W.O.R.K. yahoo! group. Like the writer and Sufi Idries Shah's Palace of the Man in Blue, the Sher Point web site comes and goes and is online from 10:00 to 22:30 hours, UK time, most days.

The Sher Point web site supercedes the work of sarmouni.dyndns.org, which has now been taken off-line. What's sarmouni, you ask? The name sarmouni means "bees", which conjures up associations such as a creative "hive of activity" and the collection and timely distribution of a subtle substance which we could liken to "honey".

I'll post here from time to time whenever inspiration arrives, on whatever topic or issue moves me at that time, and hope that a little of what I've written inspires and entertains you.

Regards, Etienne.