The Hidden Master (From 'I' to 'Itness On Vimalaji's Teaching')

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The Hidden Master is the story of an inquiry into the nature of total transformation of the human psyche, sometimes called enlightenment, as revealed by a realised Teacher, Vimala Thakar. It is also a story about the interaction of two forces-the force of understanding (the Teacher) and the force of inquiry (the seeker after truth). In attempting to live and practice the teaching of Vimalaji, the inquirer, Christine Townend, decided to record and analyse the inner and outer events of the investigation which she undertook. She was interested to observe how a realised Teacher lived, worked and taught. It was felt that it was important, not only to describe the difficulties of sadhana through which the seeker passes, but also to describe the qualities of a realised human being, without glamour or sentimentality. It was Vimalaji who encouraged and guided the writing of the book, and who gave so much of her time and her love in the form of interviews and discussions for this purpose.

CHRISTINE TOWNEND is an Australian who became Managing Trustee of Help. in Suffering Animal Shelter based in Jaipur, Rajasthan in 1990 and has been living and working at the Shelter as a volunteer with her husband, a lawyer, since 1992.

In my youth I vaguely imagined that enlightenment was something that happened to Buddhist monks who went and sat in caves for years on end, and after, emerged as radiant gods, never again to live as a human being, but to smile enigmatically, detachedly, at the foolishness of lesser mortals. Through the wonder and magic of life I was able to meet a human being who had become enlightened, or who had passed through the process of self- realisation, of moksha, of satori, or the third initiation as it is called by the Theosophists. And, as I questioned her, and learnt from her, I began to understand that self-realisation is not some mysterious process dropped from heaven upon a selected few, but that it is a component of human evolutionary unfoldment, a process through which thousands of human beings have passed, and through which increasing numbers will pass as the millennium progresses. For this reason, more information is required about this transformation of consciousness, which, in ancient India was treated as an exploratory science. I had met, through the gift of circumstance, an ordinary human being who was also a god, who illustrated for me through the example of her life and her Teaching, that self-transformation is the birthright of every human, and that there is a direct path, a scientific enquiry, which can bring about an inner revolution, a radical shift in perception and awareness, in the human psyche. I began to realize that this inner-revolution was so profound, so irreversible, that the person who underwent such a process could never be the same again, and yet, this process was entirely private; it was an inner transformation. In much the same way as the caterpillar became the butterfly, quite surprisingly, without any manipulation on its part, but merely co-operation, so also the human consciousness emerged from its bondage, and realised itself as universal and unlimited, free from time and space, and ego. In recent years there has been an increased interest in the subject of enlightenment. Among the plethora of claims, and the multitudinous information, much confusion, contradiction, and misdirection is to be found, perhaps deterring some from going further in their inquiries, due to the emotional and exaggerated stories that are told. In this book is recorded the story of my meeting with a Master, and the information which she shared with me, as a result of my probing and inquiry. I lived and worked in India whilst concurrently pursuing the quest for spiritual truth. This is not a biography, but my observation of certain processes which take place in consciousness. I hope it will provide useful material, some debate and discussion as well as inspiration for all those who have seen that the future of humanity does not lie in creating more and more wealth and material comfort, but in scientifically examining the inner processes which revolutionise consciousness, and thus perception of, and behaviour in, the phenomenal world.

**Contents and Sample Pages**