Blessed by Mysterious Grace-The Journey of a Pilgrim

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Ravi Ravindra was born and received his early education in India before moving to Canada. He was a Member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton in 1977, and a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study at Shimla in 1978 and 1998. He was the founding Director of the Threshold Award for Integrative Studies (1978-80), and pilot Professor of Science and Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies in 1989.

At present Dr Ravindra is Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, where he was Professor and Chair of Comparative Religion, Professor of International Develop- ment Studies and Adjunct Professor of Physics. Recipient of many fellowships, awards, visiting professorships and research grants, he is the author of more than a hundred and twenty papers in Physics, Philosophy and Religion, and a number of books.

Ravi Ravindra has been a lifelong searcher on the spiritual path and has worked closely with significant teachers like J. Krishnamurti and George Gurdjieff's foremost pupil, Madame Jeanne de Salzmann, among others. The impact of the teachings from different sources like Theosophy, Zen, Sufi, and Indian traditions as well as Esoteric Christianity is clear to see in this autobiography as Ravi carves out the trajectory of his life and search while being actively engaged as a physicist and academician.

This memoir is important because it traces the journey of a spiritual seeker who has been actively engaged in the world. There are many accounts of seekers who leave the world to pursue a spiritual quest or live conflicted lives as they try to balance the search for Self with their everyday jobs. By contrast, Ravi's account brings the quest right into the context of modern life and its striving. It shows how the two streams are not only inextricably intertwined but necessary for coming upon a real understanding of one's place in the cosmos.

The chapters on his work with his own teachers bring to a wider audience the com- passionate nature of the teacher-pupil relation- ship in different spiritual traditions, from the Gurdjieff work and Krishnamurti to that of some very significant Zen Masters in Japan and Korea. Through Ravi's eyes we are privileged to receive an intimate view of these great teachers.