John Butler

Once back in England, he found a method of meditation. His love of nature led him to take up organic farming, but when asked on initiation what he really wanted in life, he answered, 'God'. He had been schooled in the Christian faith but was not at the time attracted to the Church. Meditation proved ideal as his restless nature led him to take off for the Kalahari and Namib deserts. Later, at low ebb in the Arizona desert, he 'met Jesus', another turning point in his life, shifting the focus of his spiritual practice from meditation to prayer. In the late 1980s he returned to university in England to study Russian so that he could visit his mother's homeland, which he first did in 1991. This led to a period of teaching in Russia, where he learnt more about the Orthodox practice of 'prayer of the heart'. The basis of this book are notes the author kept, but he stresses that it is a not a guide book. It is offered as evidence that with patient perseverance the grip of the ego, and all the unhappiness it brings, can be loosened, that through grace we may find our way back to our true nature, to God. As he expressed it in a poem: It is obvious enough when one looks at the sky, that the sun is obscured when clouds pass by, with this natural fact I'll endeavour to show how the problems of life can diminish and go, for problems arise when we take by mistake, changing scenes for our permanent state, within each of us shines a similar sun, dependent on nothing, beholden to none, in all things sufficient, with freedom and bliss, it's there from our birth, and it's what a man is, now that you may query, but look and you'll find how your sun gets hid by the clouds of your mind.