Paul Brunton

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Paul Brunton (October 21, 1898 - July 27, 1981) was born Raphael Hurst, and later changed his name to Brunton Paul and then Paul Brunton. He was a British philosopher, mystic, traveler, and guru. He left a journalistic career to live among yogis, mystics, and holy men, and studied a wide variety of Eastern and Western esoteric teachings. With his entire life dedicated to an inward and spiritual quest, Brunton felt charged with the task of communicating his experiences to others and, as the first person to write accounts of what he learned in the East from a Western perspective, his works had a major influence on the spread of Eastern mysticism to the West. Taking pains to express his thoughts in layperson's terms, Brunton was able to present what he learned from the Orient and from ancient tradition as a living wisdom. His writings sum up his view that meditation and the inward quest are not exclusively for monks and hermits, but will also support those living normal, active lives in the Western world." (from Paul Brunton: Essential Readings by Godwin, Cash and Smith)

Contents

[edit] Biography

Paul Brunton was born in London in 1898 and after having served in the First World War, started to devote himself to mysticism. He came into contact with Theosophists. In the early 1930s, Brunton embarked on a voyage to India, which would bring him into contact with such luminaries as Meher Baba, Sri Shankaracharya of Kancheepuram and Sri Ramana Maharshi. Brunton has been credited with introducing Ramana Maharshi to the West through his books "A Search in Secret India" and "The Secret Path".

One day -sitting with Ramana Maharishi- Brunton had an experience which Steve Taylor names "an experience of genuine enlightenment which changed him forever". Brunton describes it in the following way:

I find myself outside the rim of world consciousness. The planet which has so far harboured me disappears. I am in the midst of an ocean of blazing light. The latter, I feel rather than think, is the primeval stuff out of which worlds are created, the first state of matter. It stretches away into untellable infinite space, incredibly alive. [1]

After two decades of successful writing, Brunton retired from publishing books and devoted himself to writing essays and notes. Upon his death in 1981 in Vevey, Switzerland, it was revealed that in the period since the last published book in 1952, he had rendered about 20,000 pages of philosophical writing.

A longtime friend of Paul Brunton, philosopher Anthony Damiani, coordinated the publishing effort together with a team of people including Paul Cash and Timothy Smith. The Swedish-American publisher Robert Larson started publishing the 16-volume set in 1984.

"Bring again and again into remembrance the fact that you are a pilgrim, that this world is but a camp, and that the situations in which you find yourself, or create for yourself, should be regarded not from the worldly point of view only, but still more from that of this quest of the Overself." Paul Brunton

[edit] Criticism

The American author Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, who was the son of a wealthy Jewish American friend of Brunton and of his wife, wrote a book My Father's Guru. In the book he details how he became disillusioned with Brunton. He also describes that, while a boy, Brunton had been a friend to him. Masson grew up in the 1940s and 1950s with Paul Brunton ("P.B." to those who knew him) in his house, who numbered Masson's parents among his handful of close disciples. According Mr. Masson, Paul Brunton singled him out as a potential heir to his spiritual kingdom. In 1956, Paul Brunton thought that a third world war was imminent and the Massons decided to move to Montevideo, a "safe" location. From Uruguay, Masson went at Paul Brunton's bidding to study Sanskrit at Harvard. Brunton himself didn't leave for South America, he spent some time living in New Zealand.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^  Jackson, Kevin A Short History of Pyramidology (28th Sept. 2002) on the website of the BBC "the largely innocuous self-appointed guru 'Dr' Paul Brunton, who wrote a bestselling book, A Search in Secret Egypt (1935), where he recalled his conference with weird spirits inside the Pyramid;" (retrieved 28 Jan. 2006)

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Books

  • Are You Upward Bound with William G. Fern (1931)
  • A Search in Secret India (1934)
  • The Secret Path (1935)
  • A Search in Secret Egypt (1936)
  • A Message from Arunachala (1936)
  • A Hermit in the Himalayas (1936)
  • The Quest of the Overself (1937)
  • Indian Philosophy and Modern Culture (1939)
  • The Inner Reality (1939) [published in the U.S. as Discover Yourself, same year]
  • Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga (1941)
  • Wisdom of the Overself (1943)
  • Spiritual Crisis of Man (1952)

[edit] Miscellaneous

  • Brunton, Paul. 1975. "A Living Sage of South India" in The Sage of Kanchi New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, New Delhi. ed by T.M.P. Mahadevan, chapter 2
  • Brunton, Paul. 1959, 1987. Introduction to Fundamentals of Yoga by Rammurti S. Mishra, M.D. New York; Harmony Books
  • Brunton, Paul. 1937. "Western Thought and Eastern Culture" The Cornhill Magazine
  • Brunton, Paul. 1951. Introduction to Wood, Ernest Practical Yoga London: Rider
  • Plus articles in "Success Magazine", "Occult Review", "The Aryan Path", &c.

[edit] Posthumously Published Texts

  • Essays on the Quest (1984)
  • Essential Readings
  • Conscious Immortality
  • Notebooks of Paul Brunton (1984-88)

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Paul Brunton in his book A Search in Secret India, p.305, cited by Steve Taylor in his article Satsang The Power of Spiritual Presence /in New Dawn Magazine No. 101 (Mar-Apr 2007)
  2. ^ "In 1963, after several years of travelling and living in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, Brunton withdrew to the serenity of the Swiss Alps." Adyar online
  3. ^ Here, in his son's account, is Brunton's description of an illumination that came upon him after years of study. Excerpt

[edit] External links

http://wisdomsgoldenrod.org/notebooks/