1. It is about establishing in ourselves knowledge and understanding of the Unity of Existence and beginning to see its implications for our own lives and for society (which would include all human activity).

2. Each student is encouraged to open his or her heart, to learn the truth about the unique individual who inhabits this body. The ultimate aim is to become fully oneself, free of dogma and coercion.
This doesn't mean the course is without structure or requirements. The days are long and the work hard both mentally and physically, but no one is forced to do anything. All is aimed at encouragement, i.e. the nurturing of bravery in the face of what can be daunting obstacles within and around us. Ultimately, the course seeks to instil in us what we would wish, to be whole and free, rooted firmly in the truth.

3. I did not know anything about the course before I went on it. I was young and curious and wanted an adventure. Something in me had fallen in love, and I didn’t know with what or how, but Chisholme seemed the right place to go. Today, 31 years later, I know that doing this course was the most sensible thing I ever did. What I learned at Chisholme gave me the tools to understand, slowly and bit by bit, what my life is about.
So, what is this course? It’s about love and knowledge. The knowledge you need in order to understand what love really is. It’s also probably the most sensible thing you’ll ever do.

4. Beshara is a meaning. It is our essential meaning, our essential connection in consciousness and ‘being’ with the reality of all that is. At Chisholme, the focus in every aspect is to the realisation of this meaning.  Whether it is in what is studied, in meditation, in the garden, kitchen, in ourselves and in all relationship, all is imbued and meant for the love and realisation of this essential meaning.

5. It is instruction in the discovery of what it means to be alive in this world today and for the future and for future generations. Not simply for oneself alone.
It is not modeled after the past, the taste of a few. It is for now, the present moment. With others who share a similar wish. The result is not homogeneity, but each one coming to know his or her own potential in its fullest expression.

1. It is impossible for one to know the Being except through its own order and arrangement; this order is reflected in that of the School. Therefore the most important prerequisite for the course is an acceptance to come under its order and to total participation on every level. This will include participation in the day-to-day work of the place, in the garden and estate and around the house, as well as in study and following the practices given. It is a retreat course, and students are expected not to leave the premises for its duration.
Peter Young (Principal)

2. One of the most important realisations for me, when I was on a six-month first course at Chisholme, was that love is the underlying motivation for everything. In this, it is not a sentimental preference for something or somebody; far less, a wish or need to possess. Often the motivation of love is hidden or distorted to our physical eyes. Only with the eye of the heart can the motivation of love be seen for what it is. Yet, even to have an inkling that love is what moves everything, stops one in one's tracks, and lays one open to seeing things differently.

1. Simply sitting or kneeling, with a straight back, and letting go…for half an hour, three times a day.

2. The meditation practised on the Beshara courses is not defined according to any specific method or technique. There is no particular focus, mantra, nor posture to adopt, although it is generally considered best to kneel or sit with a straight back.
All that is required is for one to approach this time with the best intention ... to surrender all attachment to the occasion.
Nor is there any need for striving for a particular experience according to any past practice ... We can too easily become attached to our striving.
It is pointless to use words to describe whatever may, or may not appear to happen during this time because this is not intended to be a personal experience, nor one which might be related.
A phrase, which is sometimes used as reference is "to give all the space to God"... a direction, which need not apply only during meditation.

Read Bulent Rauf's piece on Prayer & Meditation

1. No qualifications or experience are needed to do the course.
Students come to Chisholme from all over the world. They are of all ages, come from many different backgrounds and from every walk of life - the only common factor being a desire for Truth without the limits of dogma or precept. For many students, English is not their first language, although a working knowledge of English is required.

1. If we are talking about the Beshara School, the answer is not in the sense of some written statement or creed. You are asked to be committed to be true to your own self and your conscience, to your studies and to appropriate and conducive behaviour for learning and for personal and spiritual growth.

2. This is a difficult one, for it may not be clear at the beginning, exactly what the commitment is. For me, to start with, it was simply a commitment to lasting out the six months of the course. That deepened into a commitment to the truth, no matter how difficult or awkward that seemed to be. Later still, it was realised as a commitment to surrender to the flow of love, however that manifests. Each of us has to find our own commitment.

1. Certainly lives can be changed through attending a Beshara course.
The impulse to change one's life direction is often sufficient motivation for an experience of the knowledge of unity. Once there has been a taste of this knowledge, our everyday living can become qualified by the richness of this taste ... or by its obvious lack. There may be no significant external changes to our circumstances, but what appears as one's life can certainly become more aligned with an essential purpose.

2. The six-month course offers an opportunity to retreat from our everyday life into a cleaner, clearer, more enhanced perception. Surrounded by love and acceptance, we may choose to apply this unique time and place towards getting to know ourselves better. Increasing our awareness of ourselves may then inform our ways of conduct, our decision-making and our priorities, among many others. The course offers the opportunity for each of us to embark on our own internal journey, in which each is the navigator to their own being. Each of us may choose whether to take this journey, which path to go by and at what pace to progress.

3. What we consider our life may change, but not because we are making changes to it.  Rather because of the most fundamental change of all - the illusion dropping away, the realisation that our life isn't ours at all.

4. Maybe there's not really a separation between 'me' and 'my life'. As change takes place in my life it affects (brings change) in 'me' too, if I am open to it. And movement, becoming educated, change in 'me', in turn affects 'my life'. Moreover, to commit oneself to the education offered on a six-month course is already a significant change, actual and potential, both for 'me' and 'my life'.

1. It is very rare in one's life to be able to take six months 'out' of life to embark on such a unique course. The intensive nature of the course whereby students are involved from the moment of waking to the point of sleep every day creates an extraordinary environment within which to learn. All aspects of the school are geared towards providing students with all their needs to enable them to focus on the course and its matter.

2. The duration, practices, focus and gentle support, helps us to see and experience reality a little more clearly. It allows us to have a more cohesive and deeper experience of depending on reality and finding in this its essential value and freedom.

3. Often what is truly special to one person cannot be related, or might appear as very ordinary to another. However, it can be said that the experience and knowledge of unity is very special ... while for those who are perhaps accustomed to "feeling" or "knowing" some degree of unity, it might be equally special for them to be shown ways of approach which they have so far managed to avoid. For others, it might be special for them to be given a taste of deeper meanings within each revelation of life.
Some have stated that it is such a relief to know that the uniqueness of the real self is given a real place in manifestation ... that their apparent imperfections and possible blunderings through life are truly loved and accepted.

1. Esoteric education is the drawing out of a person that innate knowledge of his or her reality, their private knowledge of who they are. It is a process of self-discovery.

2. At Beshara, esoteric education means an education which is universal and available to all. It is neither exclusive, nor for the initiated: it is essentially the universal language of the heart, addressed to the heart. It is not obscure or mystifying, but clear, personal and intimate - as close to you as your own breathing and as vital. It is an education for life, in life and from the source of all life, bearing the indelible stamp of the Real.

3. The purpose of esoteric education (esoteric meaning interior) is to direct the awareness to our own deep inner source, a source that we can draw upon for guidance and direction and to which we are all connected.

4. Education in self-knowledge. Esoteric education faces into questions like "Who am I? It recognises that at the centre there is one Reality and common experience of unity. It frequently draws from inner lines of teaching at the core of the major faiths, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The aim is to facilitate growth, self-realisation and union.