A retirement home for spiritual seekers

Norma M. S. Guise in Airole, Italy, has produced a 14 page document outlining her plans for a new kind of retirement home for spiritual seekers. Her first step is to find 10 to 15 'awakened' people, each having entered the 'Third Age', who might like to commit themselves to such a venture. She feels that the time is right for such a group to buy a large, secluded house in the UK, set in spacious grounds which could be used for permaculture. Each resident would pay a monthly contribution towards staff and upkeep and have their own self-contained space. Surplus wordly possessions could be largely pooled to furnish the non-private parts of the house and the communal room. The staff would include a 'Home-maker' nurse, and others to look after most of the chores. There would be opportunities for visitors, craft studios, places for retreats, a small hospice facility and a nature reserve burial ground.

'We need a Home for the Spirit, a Spiritual Home or "Going Home" Home'

'We need a Home for the Spirit ... a Spiritual Home ... or 'Going Home' Home,' writes Guise. 'No, not a monastery. Not an Ashram. For then we would be depriving ourselves of the very opportunities we would need to teach us to drop, in every situation, all our roles, our game playing, our defensiveness - all our social niceties.' Her hope is that 'as our bodies get weaker our spirit will get stronger and, for each of us in turn, as our time draws near for the final letting go, we will become less and less concerned with the world of the senses and more and more in tune with Life itself'.

Similarities between meditation and old age

She quotes Ram Dass on the similarities between the experiences of meditation and old age:

'Some people think that getting old is an error...that God has in some way blundered. When you get old - what happens? You lose the use of your limbs ... you lose your hearing ... you lose your sight ... you lose your tasting ... you lose your smelling. Even your very thoughts, once so intense and full of meaning, become elusive and difficult to hold on to. And yet there are many very young and healthy people who actually choose to set up these very same conditions for themselves The first requirement is that they be able to sit for a long time in one position without moving ... then they draw in their awareness from their ears hearing ... from their eyes seeing ...from their nose smelling and their tongue tasting ... then they pull their awareness back from identifying with their thoughts ... It's quite a discipline. It's called Meditation. Carried out with total awareness it leads to a state of supreme wisdom and peace.'

She also quotes an epitaph found on a late 18th century tomb in Ashby, Massachusetts:

Remember friends

As you pass by

As you are now

So once was I

As I am now

So you must be

Prepare yourselves

To follow me.

Norma M. S. Guise, Via Castello 2, 18030 Airole (IM), Italy.

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