ENLIGHTENED souls wouldn’t walk into a rock concert and murder innocent people, nor blow themselves up in a packed restaurant, says Hugh Wilson.
The Fremantle resident says this is the most painful time in history and the world needs a paradigm shift to pull it back from the brink. He says governments, corporations and even the United Nations appear powerless to turn things around, so he’s starting a school of enlightenment hoping the concept spreads across the globe.
The Silent Mind School of Enlightenment will help people to drop their pre-conceptions about others: “We fill our minds with judgements. The most opinionated people are those who are the most fragile,” Mr Wilson told the Herald. “Unless you drop your filters, you will never see anyone clearly.”
Mr Wilson says people need to reclaim their “source”, which will unleash the joy, enthusiasm and innocence of the children they once were. One way of doing this is to reconnect with nature.
“Nature is the most profound teacher for the human species, but it’s being treated obscenely,” he says.
His own journey towards enlightenment came as an end-of-life crisis. Heading towards his 70s (he’s now 73), he decided to come to terms with his own looming mortality as he watched close friends die.
It didn’t go down well with his family and his marriage fell apart and he found himself at rock bottom in a small country town with no-one to turn to.
“It was late on a sunny morning, a Thursday after a sleepless night and a morning feeling hopeless, unloved and alone. I realised there was no escape possible. I gave up resisting, I surrendered into a dark unknown. I literally collapsed onto the kitchen floor.”
Mr Wilson says he discovered a silence full of unconditional love, which he wants to share with others.
But he says unlike other enlightenment movements, he’ll be no guru and wants his organisation to be a ridgy-didge school.
An architect, Mr Wilson designed one of WA’s first housing co-ops and has since turned his hand to ergonomic chairs.
He’s got a patent on the SitBones Chair, which has a shorter seat to encourage users to put all their weight on their “sitting bones”. Blokes get their own version with a groove, which gives their prostate and testicles a little breathing room.
Mr Wilson’s first Silent Mind meeting will be held at the Fibonacci Centre on Blinco Street on Tuesday December 1, with a gold coin donation going towards keeping the Fib going. Call him on 0488 053 575.
by STEVE GRANT
