for all who are interested

[Guest guest]

On the subject of Krishnamurti, Ramana and Gurdjieff, a book has just come out which is the biography of a woman named Ethel Merston who worked very closely with all 3 from 1920 until all their deaths. She was a remarkable woman in many ways, and her book is a first hand account of being close to all these teachers (and many others). She ends up as closer to Ramana than the others which is very interesting. Lots of dialogue with Ramana that's never been published before.

 

posted to Open_Awareness by Steve Summers

 

 

A Woman's Work

With Gurdjieff, Ramana Maharshi, Krishnamurti, Anandamayi Ma & Pak Subuhby Mary Ellen Korman

The spiritual life story of Ethel Merston based on her diaries and recollections is an important historical work, as well as a keen insight into many of the seminal teachers of her times. Merston was one of Gurdjieff's first English pupils and lived at the Prieuré from 1922 until 1927. Her seriousness and organizational abilities led Gurdjieff to put her in charge in his absences. Fritz Peters gives a wonderful account of what she had to put up with (he gives her the name Miss Madison) in his Boyhood with Gurdjieff. In India, she lived at Ramana Maharshi's ashram for many years. She gives a first-person account of his death and also the meeting between The Mother and Sri Aurobindo and Anandamayi Ma (with whom she often traveled). She also attended many of Krishnamurti's talks and seminars in the 1930s, was a friend of Sunyata, Alain Daniélou, Krishna Prem and Swami Omananda. In the 1950s she was initiated into Subud by Pak Subuh at J. G. Bennett's Coombe Springs study house. At Mendham, she met again her friends from her Gurdjieff days—Mme de Salzmann, Mme Ouspensky, Olga de Hartmann and Peggy Flinsch—and was introduced to Lord John Pentland.

"There are few comprehensive accounts of individual Western pioneers who were interested in Indian spirituality in the first part of the 20th century. Ethel Merston left an intimate record of her journey as she constantly questioned and searched for a remedy to relieve the malady of her soul. We owe to Mary Ellen Korman our appreciation for chronicling that time and bringing to life many of the people Ethel Merston encountered, and who we never quite knew as fellow seekers committed to the search for higher truths."—The Mountain Path, The Journal of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

http://www.gurdjieff-legacy.org/30books/productsearch.php?continue=fourth & keyword=Merston & page=2

 

from

 

Gloria Lee NDHL