Many streams fed Mirtola.

Sri Krishna Prem and Sri Madhava Ashish, teaching from authentic personal experience, see the diversity of mystical traditions as ‘different fingers pointing to the same moon’.

Among the major influences were Buddhism, Vaishnav seva, Advaita, Theosophy, the Sufi masters, and the modern Russian teacher G.I. Gurdjieff. More contemporary influences are depth psychology (especially the insights of Jung), a unique use of dream analysis, the study of myth, symbols and alchemy. What is stressed is ‘the staking of everything that does not matter for the one thing that does’.

As a disciple wrote in a foreword to Sri Madhava Ashish’s book, Relating to Reality, ‘the shining superstructure of thought was presented by him (Ashishda) through long, luminous nights, summoning the shades of the mystic past: from the Neo-Platonists to the Sufis, from the Upanishads to the Buddha, Chandidas and Ramakrishna, from the alchemists to Blake and Jung and Gurdjieff.’

Reading List

 Books by Sri Krishna Prem:
The Yoga of the Bhagavat Gita, Stuart & Watkins, London, and Morning Light Press, USA
The Yoga of the Kathopanishad, John M. Watkins, London, and Morning Light Press, USA
Initiation into Yoga, An Introduction to the Spiritual Life, Quest Books, USA, and B.I. Publications, New Delhi, India
Man, the Measure of All Things (with Sri Madhava Ashish), Rider & Co., London, and Quest Books, USA

Books by Sri Madhava Ashish:
Man, Son of Man, Rider & Co., London, and Quest Books, USA
An Open Window: Dream as Everyman’s Guide to the Spirit, Penguin Books India, New Delhi
What Is Man? Penguin Books India, New Delhi
Relating to Reality, Banyan Books, New Delhi

Books of related interest:
Yogi Sri Krishnaprem, Dilip Kumar Roy, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, India
Letters from Mirtola, written by Sri Krishnaprem and Sri Madhava Ashish to Karan Singh, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, India
Guru by Your Bedside, S.D. Pandey, Penguin Books India, New Delhi
The Masters Speak: An American Businessman Encounters Ashish and Gurdjieff, Seymour B. Ginsburg, Quest Books, USA
Dreams and Beyond: Finding Your Way in the Dark, Madhu Tandan, Hay House, New Delhi, India
(Please see the Books section for Links to all the above titles)

The Gurdjieff Books:
Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson by G.I. Gurdjieff
Meetings with Remarkable Men by G.I. Gurdjieff
Life Is Real Only Then When ‘I Am’ by G.I. Gurdjieff
Views from the Real World by G.I. Gurdjieff
In Search of the Miraculous by P.D. Ouspensky
Our Life with Mr Gurdjieff by Thomas and Olga de Hartmann
Journey through this World: Meetings with Gurdjieff, Orage and Ouspensky by C.S. Nott
Teachings of Gurdjieff: The Journal of a Pupil by C.S. Nott
Gurdjieff: The Anatomy of a Myth by James Moore
Mount Analogue by René Daumal

Books we were encouraged to read:
The Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi
I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Voice of the Silence by H.P. Blavatsky
Light on the Path written down by M.C.
The Secret Doctrine by H.P. Blavatsky
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna by ‘M’ (Mahendranath Gupta)
Ramakrishna and his Disciples by Christopher Isherwood
Buddhism by Christmas Humphreys
Buddhist Wisdom: The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra Translated by Edward Conze
The Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold
Hinduism and Buddhism by Ananda K Coomaraswamy
Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel
Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa: A Biography from the Tibetan by Gtsan-Smyon He-Ru-Ka and W. Y. Evans-Wentz
The Tibetan Book of the Dead by Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup and W.Y. Evans-Wentz
Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt
Selected Poems from the Dıvan-i-Shams-i-Tabrız, by Jalal al-din Rumi, trans. R. A. Nicholson
Tales from the Masnavi by Jalal al-din Rumi, trans. A. J. Arberry
The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks
The Conference of the Birds by Farid-ud-Din Attar
The Garden of Vision by L. Adams Beck
Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G. Jung
Man and his Symbols by C.G. Jung
Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill
Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening by Mary Lutyens
Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfilment by Mary Lutyens
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
Parabola (The Journal)
The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda

A bookshelf in a disciple’s home. One was encouraged by Ashishda to read widely, but to reach no conclusions that were not verified through direct experience. ‘To find the truth in here and not second-hand out there.’

In a letter to a disciple, Ashishda wrote: ‘If one calls Gurdjieff ”The Great Russian Bodhisattva”, as someone did , it does not mean that he was buddhist...There are such men and women who, somehow, remain to teach’.