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Nathan Gill

Keeping it simple

In earlier days I hunted everywhere for timeless wisdom. Yet I never found it in big auditoriums with charismatic gurus and the crowds of disciples who revered them.

Instead I found it off the spiritual grid, away from the workshops and weekend seminars. I found it among plainspoken people who didn’t market their spiritual wares. Nor did they recruit followers or imply a spectacular future awakening.

It was there with a technical writer who in so many words said enlightenment was bogus; with an old Army captain who collected arrowheads and once ran a bakery in downtown Birmingham; with a gardener who lived in a country village in South East England.* They spoke in everyday English, not of moksha and darshan, satsang and nirvilkalpa samadhi. Yet in so many words each said the same thing: The real teacher is within you. You are That.

*Note:  A few years ago I got the sad news that the British gardener died. His name is Nathan Gill. The words below, excerpted from the last chapter of his book, Already Awake, convey his wise, yet down-to-earth approach:                         





“In the play, there's an obsession with the importance of this: that there is going to be a special awakening or some so-called enlightenment... When the seeking drama collapses, there is relaxing into ordinary life, and all is simply as it is... The character is seen through. Well, that’s enough of that. Switch that tape off and we’ll get down  to the pub, Captain.”