It’S Part of Who I Am: Searching for Spiritual Understanding

By Kay Fraser

Its Part of Who I Am: Searching for Spiritual Understanding tells the story of one woman, Peace, who relentlessly seeks out spiritual understanding. Her daughter, Kay, explores the complexities involved in the life of her mother. She, in turn, finds that her exploration leads her to embark on her own spiritual journey.

Kay Fraserwho holds a PhD in social historybrings her academic background to this intimate and personal account that follows Peace on a fifty-five year journey through many twists and turns. Peace begins with Christianity and then moves through a variety of teachingsGurdjieff, Krishnamurti, the Theosophical Society, Co-Freemasonry, and A Course in Miraclesbefore turning to Zen Buddhism for two decades. Finally she returns to the Christian Church.

Her return to the church gave rise to many questions and answers between mother and daughter. Whenever Peace was asked why, after all her searching, she had returned to the church she would simply say Its part of who I am.

If you are drawn to other peoples accounts of their spiritual journeys and wonder what insights they can provide for your own journey then Its Part of Who I Am: Searching for Spiritual Understanding will give you some clues about how to find that deep spiritual core within. Yet, it also gives hints about how not to travel on your own journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Aug 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781452529318

Kay Fraser

Kay Fraser was born in Auckland, New Zealand. She moved to London in 1968 and by 1982 was living in Sydney, Australia. She met her husband here and they moved to Tamborine Mountain, Queensland in 1999 where she has lived ever since. Kay received her PhD from The University of Sydney in 1997 and has had two books published. In 2012, A Remarkable Gift: 100 years of the Walter & Eliza Hall Trust and in 1999, Same or Different: Gender Politics in the Workplace.

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Copyright © 2015 Kay Fraser.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-2930-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-2931-8 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 08/24/2015

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 A Life Develops

Chapter 2 The Search Begins—Christianity To Zen Buddhism

Chapter 3 The Circle Completed—Zen Buddhism And Back To Christianity

Chapter 4 The End Of The Journey

Chapter 5 Lessons From My Mother

Chapter 6 Another Journey—In Paris

Chapter 7 Further Understanding

Acknowledgments

During the writing of this book I have been supported by my many friends both in Queensland and in New South Wales in Australia. Whenever it became too hard for me I could ring any one of them and they would spend time talking with me. I thank them with all my heart.

The first draft was read by Sue Cooper and Peter Crook and their insights helped me to rethink and rewrite the final draft, and for this I am very grateful. Although I take full responsibility for the words and ideas appearing in this book their contribution was significant.

Finally, grateful thanks are due to my production team. Bec Stafford who helped me make some of the necessary editorial changes, Simon Fraser who took my photographs, and Wendy Tait who so kindly gave her time for a final reading.

Introduction

This is a story of two very different spiritual journeys. It began as an attempt to understand the spiritual life of my mother, Peace. Her fifty-five-year journey started in the Christian Church, eventually moving to Zen Buddhism and returning to Christianity in her last years. As I embarked on this journey of discovery about my mother’s spiritual life, gradually the search for inner understanding became mine. Two weeks after the death of my mother I was in Paris on my own personal exploration.

What instigated my search into spiritual matters, particularly as they related to my mother, was her return to the Christian Church after twenty years as a Zen Buddhist. I could not fathom what was happening for her. I had heard her criticism of Christianity, specifically what she called its ‘narrowness’, over a period of years. Yet, here she was back in the church again and very happy to be there. It was this return to the Christian Church that prompted me to ask her questions. There was a period between 2011 and 2012 that was filled with questions and answers, and much laughter and joy. I will be forever grateful for those two years we spent together discussing some of the deep issues that form part of a spiritual journey. In early 2013, Peace had a fall and ended up in a nursing home. My questions continued but not with the same intensity as before.

When I first started jotting down Peace’s words in 2011, I knew deep down that I was going to detail her long and varied spiritual life, although I did not fully comprehend why. At that stage I did not recognise my own possible involvement in her story—I was simply the historian taking down notes to which I would refer when the writing began. My mother had a ‘Christian conversion’ in 1955 when she was thirty-seven years of age. Her mother had just died; she was devastated and as a consequence she turned to the Christian Church. I find myself in a similar position now. Peace died in March 2014 at the age of ninety-five and although I have not turned to the church, I find myself deeply engaged in trying to understand those spiritual questions that have concerned me over the years. Peace spent ten years in the bosom of the church and then left, searching for ‘the kingdom of God within’. She spent time with many groups, such as the devotees of Gurdjieff and later, the Theosophical Society and eventually practised Zen Buddhism. Then in 2010 her beloved dog, Rudi, died and once more in extreme grief she turned back to the Christian Church.

It was at the end of 2012 that I started writing about Peace—a very happy time for me. Then suddenly the words seemed to dry up, however, for the moment enough had been written. Chapters 1 and 2 have been left largely as they were written then. My words about her early life, and the beginning of her spiritual journey, became very important in the months before she died and particularly as she was dying. I would periodically read her what I had written, and because she had no short-term memory it was like a new reading each time. On the weekend she died, I read to the end of the second chapter three times. During that time her eyes were closed and she did not talk although she seemed to be listening very carefully to every word I said. I realised this because if I stopped reading she would almost hold her breath wondering where I was and what I was doing. So I simply continued to read, and was still doing so when she died.

The following paragraphs were an introduction that I wrote in 2012 and form part of what I read to Peace as she died. Little has had to be changed as the words are still relevant today, and more importantly, it is part of the journey we took together.

My mother, Peace, lives very quietly these days. She spends much time lying on her bed looking out at the trees and birds almost in a state of meditation. Tamborine Mountain in Queensland, Australia is a rainforest area and a haven for wildlife—a wonderful environment for my mother to spend her last days. She is still able to walk to the local café, even though she broke her hip a number of years ago. I often think she had to break a hip so that she was forced to slow down (she ran everywhere) and live that little bit longer so that we could have the conversations we now have. They are conversations that often reach a deep level of spiritual understanding. For many years I looked after my chronically ill husband, Ian, but now that he is no longer with us I have the time to spend with Peace. I try to see her twice a week for lunch and a coffee. I have a notebook with me and usually ask her quite searching questions. In response to my queries she will sit quietly, go somewhere deep inside herself, and often produce quite profound insights which I write in my ‘little book’. At times she will even say, I don’t know where that came from.

After Peace returned to the Christian Church whenever I ask her why, she nearly always responds, It’s part of who I am. Her return to the Christian religion is a conundrum that I have difficulty understanding and it is this mystery (to me at this moment) which is the basis of this exploration of my mother’s life. I am not the only one who questions her return to the church. When we start talking about spiritual matters, she too begins to question why she is back in the church.

During our many discussions she often says, But you can’t put that into words. I tell her I am going to try and do so. In the process, I hope to shed at least a little light on those questions that concern many of us from time to time. The types of questions I hope to explore with my mother include: Why are we here on this planet? Is this the only life we get to experience? Is there life after death, or are we really simply a continuum of something that has gone on before? When I review these sentences, I realise that there is really only one essential question here: What are we about? Yet, when Peace says, It’s part of who I am she almost seems, in some unknown way, to know who she is and what she is about.

Peace wrote a journal for me and my brother and his three boys from 2000 to 2007, when she was in her eighties. The family were moving from Auckland in New Zealand and she was pondering whether or not to come and live in Australia. This must have set her thinking about her life. In her journal she begins by telling us, I thought it might be a pleasant surprise for you to find this book after I have left this earthly life. She briefly describes some of the details about her childhood and her adult life but her journal is primarily as she points out, in order that you may see a little into the inner life of your mother! When I reminded Peace of the words she wrote for us, she jokingly accused me of ‘pinching’ her journal. However, she gave it to me around 2010 with the words, You might as well have this. It was an offhand remark yet her giving me her journal was to prove very significant. At the time I did not realise the importance of her notes but as I begin to write her story I am so very grateful to have her written words. These days I think she would find it difficult to recall the way she viewed life then. She began to write her journal at a time when she was a committed Zen Buddhist. The way she thought then appears very different to how she thinks now, after two years of being back in the church. Yet I only need to scratch the surface with my questions, and remind her of her written words, and the Peace from those earlier times returns—perhaps now even more deeply aware of the inner life.

1955 marked the beginning of her search for ‘Truth’. She would, and still does say to me, That is Truth with a capital T. After the death of her mother in that year, for the first time in her life, Peace began to wonder and question what life was about. She turned to the church and the Bible. But her search, she tells us in her journal, has always been concerned with those words from Jesus, ‘the kingdom of God is within you’. It is this saying that has been behind her long search for spiritual understanding.

Over the last twenty years I have spent a lot of time asking questions and then writing about the people who provided me with the answers. I can now see that all the training I received during my university years, the writing and compiling of information in the community, and more recently, the writing and editing of various histories, has led me to this questioning and writing about Peace. At this early stage I really have no idea where my questions and words will lead or what particular issues I will explore, with her help. After a few months of talking with Peace, I told her that the question for me is how to go about unravelling who my mother is. Her response was, You can’t unravel me—the cheek of you! Light heartedness apart, there is that something inside me that tells me that my mother and her story could be significant for others.

Part of my research towards writing about my mother involves reading various tracts from others who have written of spiritual matters. These other voices are important to this story because they are so much more qualified than I to write about the big spiritual questions. As a result of my academic background there are answers and conclusions I would like to produce, however, I am reminded by the words of the great sage, Krishnamurti, Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.¹ Thus, I must remember not to look for an answer to the conundrum posed by my mother, simply because there might not be one. These ponderings are more about bringing an understanding to what seems to be one individual’s rather varied, albeit deeply spiritual, journey.

Now, it is September 2014, and as I begin to write at home on Tamborine Mountain again, I consider my own experience in Paris earlier in the year which has become relevant to this story. My four months there was primarily to sort out in my head exactly how and what I was going to write about Peace. However, I learnt and experienced more than I had anticipated. This was not the usual adventure one thinks of in terms of a stay in Paris involving frivolities, such as shopping expeditions, casual flirtations and much eating and drinking, although I must confess to