BMS Background: 1976 to the present day
Gururaj first came to teach in England in 1976. His tours were then organised by a friends group. He appointed teachers who taught thousands of students to meditate and his talks attracted up to 500 attendees at one time.
The original friends group broke apart during 1979 due to both family matters and emigrations and Gururaj appointed John Lamb as administrator. John, with Charles Shaw and Peter Baxendale, formed a trilateral Association named British Meditation Society 1980, to arrange newsletters and residential retreats. Successful teaching continued across the UK supported solely by individual donations. The association appointed Tony Barlow as secretary and Sid Warren as teacher trainer.
Administration-wise it became necessary to start a Limited company in 1988, which was named The British Meditation Society Limited, but Gururaj passed away a few weeks after it was formed. John and Tony were joined by Peter Moore, a former headmaster and BMS's most successful teacher, as a director and teacher trainer. [Tony passed away in 2012 and BMS extends its grateful thanks to him and his family for their devotion and fortitude in supporting Guruji's cause].
Teaching within the society, which was also voluntary, diminished in the absence of the Guru and some teachers started out in self employment, which BMS wholly supported - five or six of them started other organisations (not solely the UK) - and by 2010 voluntary teaching, within BMS the company, had scaled down to almost nothing. The existence of a Limited company therefore became unnecessary so it became imperative for BMS Limited to cease trading. However, the original directors were keen to preserve the purity of the teachings, which can support meditators and teachers, who were trained by BMS, with meditation's deep-rooted background philosophy; knowledge essential to meditators but sometimes over-passed.
BMS 1980 reserves its copyrights until 2038. This website provides information for, and a link between, teachers, meditators and other people / sister organisations who knew Gururaj and who teach Gururaj's techniques. A list of tuition resources will be kept updated.
Statement : Our experience; Our mission
An Amazing Master
There’s a magnificence about being in the presence of an enlightened master. He's not like anyone else, can embarrass you when you take him out and suggests things on the spur of the moment; decidedly uncomfortable! You see, he's hardly living in the mind at all.
But what a learning. He knows all you didn't know about love. He's not attached to what you normally consider are the way things should be. The master, without intention, causes an abrupt threat to the mind. It's no doubt because our minds need that mallet-on-the-head moment to appreciate what the mind is doing to keep us from appreciating actual love.
This may sound a little precocious to those who don't get into the presence of a true master. There are only seven of them in the world at any one time and most don't get publicity. We intend to serve the public by passing on what we what we learned from our beloved guru, what we acquired in growth, understanding and awakening. We couldn't help being the ones who stumbled across him but we did. And we’d have given anything to get him back once he gone - despite our minds being so threatened when he was here.
A useful objective
Being a meditator in the Western world, i.e. a work person or householder and not a monk, can sometimes be somewhat challenging. You're trying to solve your life, making conscious effort into meditation, keen to change your perspective more quickly. So, for going beyond the usual suffering folk undergo, you don't want a half-baked tuition, which is unfortunately rife these days given the popularity growth of our main subject-meditation.
Here are two examples. First, listening to recordings of an instructor taking you on a guided tour meditation, beautiful as the background music may be, is not going to get you far along your path you want to build. Secondly, using a mantra like 'love' or 'aum' is not necessarily right for you. The word love can engender all sorts of thoughts, which you're trying to get away from. And, aum is a very pure sound, you may not be ready to use until you're advanced in unfoldment. There are lots more examples like this we want to help meditators avoid. We do have the knowledge, handed down for eons, to advise what is and isn't correct for each meditator.
Accordingly, we have come to what our purpose has always been. At this site we want to assist meditators, teachers and curious non-meditators to understand and remember some basic fundamentals, for what amounts to changing the mind’s relationship with the Self. That's what meditation is really about. It's not just relaxation, which is a good starter but, on its own, cannot provide the life-solving goods a meditator is looking for.
The TEACHINGS are about understanding the Real Whole Self, which is the real you. DO YOU GET IT? If you ignore the teachings, which are the primary element of proper meditation, you will squander three quarters of the benefits available before you've experienced them. We want to help you get to that 'life solved' feeling, where nothing causes you anguish any more, where you experience joy, where love from within replaces looking for some ideal love outside yourself.
We wish you Love, Peace and Fullness. Namaste.