Skip to main content

Where on Earth is Heaven?

A child's question to his father becomes the title of this engaging memoir of exploratory questioning, illuminating quotation and arresting story-telling.

Jonathan Stedall is a gifted documentary film maker whose subject matter has ranged from biographical studies of Gandhi and Tolstoy, imaginative explorations of place, especially with the late poet laureate, John Betjeman; and, award-winning depictions of the lives of communities - schools, the Camphill communities for people with disabilities.

For me the high point of his career was 'The Long Search': a thirteen part documentary series (if one can remember those) with the theatre director, Ronald Eyre, exploring 'comparative religion' and the modes of human spirituality with wit, intelligence, a continuously open, questing mind and, often, deeply arresting images. My favourite of which was a Buddhist monk's feet walking with extraordinary poise, grace and mindfulness across a beach.

But the book is more than a remembrance of films past, it is a inward, spiritual autobiography (that reminds me of Jung's 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections') an account of those people, ideas and encounters that have acted as 'awakeners' helping shape his understanding of the world as a meaningful whole. Foremost among the people/ideas have been those of the esoteric yet practical philosopher, Rudolf Steiner, and yet though the indebtedness is clear, nothing (as Steiner would have wanted) is taken on trust (or that strange 'admiration' attendant on the charismatic) but sifted through the lenses of both experience and reason.

I owe to Jonathan my introduction to Laurens van der Post (with whom he also made several memorable films - on Jung and on the Kalahari) who became the subject of my one and only published interview. It was almost a disaster since I became so absorbed in what Sir Laurens was saying that I forgot to turn my tape over, so was left reconstructing from memory (or inventing though out of a deep engagement with that mercurial man's works).

What remains with me foremost from the book is Jonathan's insistence that the heaven of the title is a 'state' present everywhere, every when, that we, with cleansed perceptions. look at the world, and act in it, with compassion. Simple to say, more complex to practice.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Buddha meets Christ in embrace

Reading Lama Anagarika Govinda is proving nostalgic on a number of fronts. I recall my first reading of it in my first year at university, bought at Watkins, the famous 'esoteric' bookshop in Cecil Court in London. I sat in my hall of residence room transfixed by a world made familiar; and, it was deepening of a commitment to contemplation (which has been observed fitfully)! I remember returning, at the time, to my school to give a talk to the combined fifth form on Buddhism and using Govinda as the backbone of my delivery (both this book, and his equally wonderful, the Foundations of Tibetan Buddhism). I was voted (I immodestly remember) their best invited speaker of the year. I had even bought a recording of Tibetan music as opener and closer! He reminded me of how important Buddhism was (and is) to my own thinking and comprehension of my experience. The Buddha's First Sermon in the Deer Park was the first religious text I read (of my own volition) at the tender age
13 comments
Read more

Luminous Spaces - the poetry of Olav H. Hauge

Don't give me the whole truth, don't give me the sea for my thirst, don't give me the sky when I ask for light, but give me a glint, a dewy wisp, a mote as the birds bear water-drops from their bathing and the wind a grain of salt. It began with a poem, this poem, in Mark Oakley's 'The Splash of Words: Believing in Poetry' - a wonderful series of meditations on particular poems, one each chapter. The poet is the Norwegian, Olav H. Hague (1908-1994). I immediately ordered, 'Luminous Spaces: Selected Poems & Journals' and was enjoying dipping until, at the weekend, recovering from a stomach bug, I decided to read them through and fell wholeheartedly for a new friend. Hague was born on a farm. His formal education was brought short by a combination of restricted means, an inability to conquer mathematics: and, a voracious diet of reading ranging beyond the confines of any confining curriculum. He went to a horticultural college instead an
1 comment
Read more

Richard Hauser and the evils of Marx

Richard was a distinguished Austrian sociologist who had contributed to the Wolfenden report that led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England, Wales and Scotland in the late 1960's. I was remembering him on the plane today because I saw a reference to his wife, Hephzibah Menuhin, pianist sister of the violinist Yehudi and human rights activist. I met him after responding to an advertisement in the New Society. He lived in a house in Pimlico, a widower, with a clutch of young people, running an ill-defined (for me) social research/action institute, that I visited several times and to which Richard wanted to recruit me. I was never clear as to what my responsibilities might be and resisted co-option. He was, however, extraordinarily charismatic and as a Jew had fled Austria in 1938 not without receiving permanent damage to his hearing, courtesy of Gestapo interrogation. I vividly remember one story he told me that gives you an idea of his character. He was invit
16 comments
Read more