name: Edward Salim Michael
avg_rating: 4.59
ratings_count: 58
about: His biography and spiritual journey has been writtent in French by his wife and translated into English : The Price of a Remarkable Destiny published on AmazonOf Anglo-Indian descent, Edward Salim Michael spent his entire childhood in various countries of the Middle East. He never had the opportunity of attending school and did not have a mother tongue.Parental peregrinations brought him back to London just before the storm of the Second World War.It was there that providentially he made the acquaintance of an Anglican Chaplain who taught him the basics of reading and writing. The Chaplain’s wife taught him music which he assimilated at a stunning speed. His first orchestral piece, composed after only two years of study, won a competition a His biography and spiritual journey has been writtent in French by his wife and translated into English : The Price of a Remarkable Destiny published on AmazonOf Anglo-Indian descent, Edward Salim Michael spent his entire childhood in various countries of the Middle East. He never had the opportunity of attending school and did not have a mother tongue.Parental peregrinations brought him back to London just before the storm of the Second World War.It was there that providentially he made the acquaintance of an Anglican Chaplain who taught him the basics of reading and writing. The Chaplain’s wife taught him music which he assimilated at a stunning speed. His first orchestral piece, composed after only two years of study, won a competition and was played at the Albert Hall in London. After the War, from which he emerged terribly bruised, he pursued his musical studies with passion and in addition to composition, became a solo violinist. He gave his first concerts after only three years of study. In 1949, another providential meeting awoke within him a mysterious silent memory. It was in London at the house of Mr. Adie who was part of the Gurdjieff groups in England, that he saw a statue of Buddha for the first time in his life. He remained transfixed in front of it and, when he returned to his home, he immediately put himself into the same posture as the statue with no difficulties, closed his eyes and began to concentrate on an inner sound that he heard within his ears and head, without even knowing that what he was doing was called meditation.In parallel to his career as a musician, he then embarked on his spiritual practice with all the passion and exactingness of a great artist. Through the exceptional concentration skills he had developed as a composer, he swiftly began to have profound spiritual experiences.As his parents had never practiced any religion, he had been sheltered from any religious conditioning. His lack of school education and book knowledge left him with a slate clean from prejudice and projections. He would follow the path of direct experience, beyond all dogmas.At the beginning of the 1950s, he went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, the greatest teacher of musical analysis of the Twentieth Century. He appreciated her extreme rigor and felt profound gratitude towards her.He lived from hand to mouth under the most precarious conditions, assiduously pursuing his practice of meditation added to by a constant combat to remain present to himself amid all the circumstances of his active life.After five years of incessant effort, at the age of thirty-three, he had an extremely powerful experience of awakening to what one may call the Buddha Nature as well as the Infinite in oneself. ...more