Books
by Howard Murphet
"Man Of Miracles"
"The Lights of Home" |
Howard Murphet |
Howard Murphet is well known to Sai
Devotees world-wide. In the mission of the Sai Avatar, Howard was
called forward, along with others (most notably, Jack Hislop) to
chronicle his experiences seeking the spiritual path, discovering Sai
Baba, deepening his store of wisdom (and finally, to his great joy,
his store of prema) and sharing those experiences in print. Howard has
a most frank manner of writing. His is the rare knack of involving his
reader in his narrative and his questions, and the answers to the many
questions he raised about Sathya Sai Baba. The result was a
magnificent trilogy of Sai books, Sai Baba-Man of Miracles, Sai
Baba-Avatar and Sai Baba-Invitation to Glory.
In a darkening era when the lights of
humanity have been dimmed by planet-wide wars, the population
explosion, and the gee-whiz electronics in home, hearth and workplace
that divide the haves from the have-nots, Howard Murphet emerges as a
beacon shining in the darkness, guiding those in travail to the safe
shores of Sathya Sai Baba.
Howard has been to war. He evaluated
the cause of war spiritually, before joining up. He knew there was a
great spiritual goal in his life, amid the twists and turns he has
observed in his ninety plus years. He is a modern Parsifal, a knight
of the Round Table in search of the Holy Grail, which he called his
“Star of Destiny” or his “Star of the East.” Howard Murphet’s quest
was to discover that star and satisfy the restless yearning in his
soul.
In this life time, Howard Murphet was
born in Tasmania, the ‘apple isle’ of Australia, in 1906. His family
came from a strong Christian background, and he was blessed with a
mother of great faith, whom he names as his first guru. In his youth,
he had a miracle after falling into a deep pond, and later on, had a
vision of another world, perhaps Heaven:
“As I gazed upwards into the blue,
absorbed in the beauty of this dome-like roof of the world, suddenly a
window appeared in the roof. Beyond the window was a glorious scene
that made me feel I was looking into Heaven. There was a radiant light
shining on white or light-coloured buildings in the background. In the
foreground were figures moving about as if in a street scene. Their
robes were of rich colours with red and gold predominating. I could
see some of their faces, which to me looked wise, benign and somehow
noble. I remember too that there was a soft drift of heavenly music
coming through the window and reaching my ears as I lay on my back
among the silent oats. A wave of bliss flooded through me as time
stood still. Then as suddenly as it had come, the window disappeared,
leaving nothing but the clear blue of the sky. But I knew that the
radiant, heavenly scene in the sky had been real while it lasted....
Was it really Heaven I had been looking into, I wondered... but I had
not seen the golden throne of God, and the figures moving about did
not have wings, as angels should, according to my mother.”
Many years’ pursuit of various forms
of formal education and visits to war-torn Germany inspired Howard to
be a spiritual seeker. In moments of heightened intuition he was
always in tune with his real self.
Several years after participating in
Yoga classes, Howard met Iris, his wife to be and companion in travels
and spiritual seeking. Together they studied and travelled to Europe.
Howard was to visit Germany again, and England. After visiting and
attending a spiritual practice called Subud for a time, they sailed
east to attend the School of Wisdom at the Theosophical Society’s
Adyar Institute, on the river Adyar, Madras, in 1964.
The search had not ended. Howard had
certainly found his Star of Destiny, his Star of the East that he had
sought all his life. The Crown Prince of Venkatagiri shared his belief
with Howard that Sathya Sai Baba was a full incarnation of God, an
“avatar.” Howard departed from Puttaparthi, armed with books gifted by
Sathya Sai Baba, and was determined to answer the question, “was He
also an avatar, a descent of God to earth?”
Howard has written that he was
probably the first from the western world to come to Sathya Sai Baba
as a western sceptic and stay with Him or near Him for some six years
in India. He did this in order to solve the problem of His Identity
and why He was here in the world. “After returning to the west I have
been back many times, pulled by the strong magnet of the Divine Love
and fascination of One I decided was an Avatar of God. He taught me
what an Avatar is, His relationship to ordinary human beings in the
world and how His Purpose was to lead those who are ready, to their
own inner Guru or the God within. I did not immediately accept Him as
an Avatar, but after He taught me in a humble manner what an Avatar is
and how we are all Avatars, descendants from God without being aware
of it. As I stayed on, I became more and more certain that He was
indeed an Avatar. This is not based on the fact that He materialises
things.”
Howard has used the ancient vedantic
method of learning in his evaluation of Sathya Sai. This is crucial
today. Sai Baba himself says, “Well, making the questioner himself
give out the answers is the Sanathana method of teaching. If those who
question themselves give the answers, they would clearly understand
the subject. The lecturing style is different. In olden days, all the
Rishis enabled their disciples to understand Vedanta only by this
method.”
Those who read Howard’s books must
follow in his footsteps and ask their own questions. Someone else’s
questions and answers do not lead to liberation. In this wise, Howard
has been an exemplar who has adequately illuminated the path for
others to walk. The task of the devotee is excavation of Truth.
Howard describes the greatest of Sai
miracles to be the Divine Love by which He brings about a deep change
in the nature of people, His followers. We are born of course with the
embryo of the Divine Child within us. Swami gives us the initiation to
begin to know the meaning of true Love and the feeling of oneness with
our brother man.
In 1982, Howard was diagnosed as
having an incurable disease He prayed very earnestly for healing. He
was in a beautiful room in the Adelaide Hills “while Sai Baba in the
body was of course at that time in India at His ashram. My prayer was
so intense that after a sleep on a couch while the sun was shining
through the windows I woke up to see Swami’s Hand and Arm as it
circled over me and I knew that He had come, that this was a healing
gesture. I saw it in that brief time between being asleep and fully
awake when as you might have heard, everybody has a short period of
clairvoyance. When that short period had passed His Hand and Body
disappeared from my vision but He was still there in the room and I
knew this by the unbelievably soul-moving sense of the luminous in the
room. In fact, the room was filled by it and it penetrated the wall to
where my wife was sitting in the breakfast room and then when Swami
left, the luminous went too. This is what the ancient Romans called
“sense of the Presence of the Divine” (the luminous or lumina). Well,
I knew that I was cured of the disease and all tests afterwards proved
that this was so.”
Howard writes, although blind: ‘Before I came into Sai
Baba’s private interview, near the end of 1989, I had accepted
unhappily the prospect of a silent rest from the labours of writing,
which had been my life and joy for many years. As Swami knew, through
retinal haemorrhages into both eyes, I was quite unable to read or
write. All I had was minimal peripheral vision in one eye. But in a
firm, commanding voice he said, “You must write the book that’s in
there.” He patted my chest. “Go home and write it and bring it back to
me in two years.” My wife and two friends who were present in the
room looked startled at this royal command. “May he have a co-author
to help him?” asked my wife. “No,” replied Swami. “He must write his
own book. I will give him all the help he needs.” I knew that I must
somehow carry out this task set me by my divine Master. But how? For
many years, my writing had been born of a happy partnership between me
and an old typewriter. The art of prose writing demanded that I work
with words and phrases on the written page, polishing towards
perfection or as near to it as attainable. To reach a satisfactory
standard in prose expression through auditory means would be quite
impossible for me. Yet, I must make the attempt.
‘Lord Sai’s help is often given
through the hands of others. I saw the first signs of this when a
Dictaphone and other equipment necessary almost fell into my lap. So
began a new, unfamiliar road to creative writing.’ So, Where the
Road Ends was written by its blind author. Howard’s days are not
over, he resides quietly in the Blue Mountains area of New South
Wales, Australia, some two hours drive from Sydney.
Howard, through his light shows
direction to others to make self evaluations in order to excavate the
Truth. He does all an invaluable service in the gloom of Kali Yuga,
and the wakening dawn of the Golden Age.
[He spread the glory of Bhagawan
to the western world. Even today, many know Bhagawan through Sai
Baba: Man of Miracles translated world-wide in various languages.
For many years, Howard had been Baba’s constant travel companion. Both
Iris and Howard had been with Baba to Madras, Ooty, Venkatagiri,
Bangalore and other places throughout India. Howard, records these
visits with love and reverence in his three books on Baba. Baba would
play on the pronunciation of his name and ask, “Murphet, are you
perfect?” A common joke but one impregnated with much deeper meaning.
–Editor |
Chris Parnell, long-time editor and writer on Baba.Presently
he
is the moderator of various e-groups on Bhagawan on the Web. |
Online source
Biography - Howard Kelvin Murphet - 1906 - 2004
"I entered this world on the 4 November 1906 and I grew up on a farm near
Launceston, Tasmania." With loving parents who instilled in him a high
code of compassion, ethics and morality, his life on the farm was rich and
satisfying.
Early events of what might be called ‘divine grace’ sowed the seeds of a
life-long interest in the supernatural. Laying down on his back looking up
at a clear blue sky, suddenly a window appeared in the dome-like roof of
the world: "Beyond the window was a glorious scene that made me feel like
I was looking into Heaven. There was radiant light shining on buildings,
moving figures with wise and noble faces, and heavenly music as well. A
wave of bliss flooded through me as time stood still." This and other
experiences at such a young age no doubt played their part in shaping
Howard’s future destiny as a voice to the world announcing spiritual
masters.
In contrast to his forming life, he found the compulsory hours at his
one-teacher school dragged on interminably. Once at high school his
delights knew no bounds. "It was a wonderful experience, a great
adventure. I loved the unfamiliar smells of new books and the chemical
laboratory. All of the teachers were excellent, had degrees and wore their
academic gowns." His father generously sent him off for two years to what
is now the oldest school in Australia, Launceston Church of England
Grammar School
Already at this early age of sixteen, Howard was wondering more about
Godly matters than most other boys his age, due perhaps in large part to
his mother’s devotion to religion: "Many noble spiritual teachings were
given to me by my first guru, my mother. Some of them – God’s omniscience,
for example – I dropped as quite irrational as I passed along the
corridors of secondary school and university. Yet years later, in the
garden of meditation and greater understanding, I discovered new facets of
my maternal spiritual teachings and knew them to be gems of truth."
Howard enrolled in the Hobart Teachers’ College and developed his love of
good literature, pointing him towards Tennyson, Browning, Keats, Emerson,
Dickens and others, with Tennyson his favourite poet: "I often quote
Tennyson in things I write."
However the practice of teaching was a disappointment and Howard at the
age of twenty-four left the safe profession of teaching at the start of
the Great Depression and arrived in Melbourne to start the Collingwood
Clarion. It did so well that he sold it after a few months so he could
work as a sports journalist on the evening edition of the Argus, a large
Melbourne daily.
When Howard was twenty-six the paper closed down, leaving him unemployed.
So he teamed up with a friend and they "went on the ‘track’. Kenneth
Slessor, the editor of Smith’s Weekly, had agreed to publish Howard’s
articles and paragraphs about the ‘bag-men’ – the vast numbers of
unemployed men ‘on the track’. "You were an accomplished bag-man if you
could jump the ‘Sydney Limited’. It used to go romping up from Melbourne
to Sydney with smoke billowing out from the coal-burning engine. So we
jumped the Sydney Limited and arrived in Sydney."
Howard met Gwen who was to become his first wife. Just before the start of
the war with Germany in 1939, they travelled by sea to England with the
intention of gaining more experience in advertising and commercial art;
but "….soon after we arrived the war came, and all of our plans fell
through as the big daily newspapers were all reduced to four pages, and
there was little room for advertising. So I had to move in another
direction then."
Howard, "seeking adventure", went over to France as a driver with the
British Red Cross. After Dunkirk he joined the ambulance service for a few
months at the start of the bombing blitz on London; then, at age
thirty-five Howard joined the British Army in an officer’s cadet training
unit, resulting in his being commissioned as a second lieutenant.
Then came postings as a motor transport officer with the Ninth Battalion
in Ireland, then Port Suez in Egypt and finally time spent training Jewish
and Palestinian troops in Palestine. The chagrin felt from missing out on
immediate action in the Western Desert soon changed to a deep
soul-nurturing delight as he began visiting the many holy places
"….written indelibly into the fabric of my childhood culture. While
walking in places where the feet of Jesus had trodden, I seemed to move,
myself, out of time into the eternal. While sitting one afternoon in the
Garden of Gethsemane near a battered olive tree that was old enough to
have witnessed the agony of Jesus in this very garden before the day of
his crucifixion, I realised that the way of life for which we were
fighting had begun here."
The hand of destiny saw him transferred to the Desert as an officer – now
captain - conducting war correspondents to wherever good news stories were
available: "As the Battle of Alamain raged, I took my party of war
correspondents to whichever part of the line promised the most interesting
action." His supply truck was blown up and later, near Benghazi, his staff
car was also destroyed with a "brother officer" losing both his legs.
After the long desert campaign came the invasion of Sicily. Now with the
Fifth Division, Howard landed with his allotted war correspondent from the
London News Chronicle: "I can see him now as we waded onto a beach from a
small landing craft, his typewriter held high above his head, while
bullets from a German aircraft whistled around our ears." Once Sicily was
taken, General Montgomery led the Eighth Army in Italy where Howard was
now in charge of "three stars among the British war correspondents at that
time ", including the Australian-born Alan Moorehead who was later to
become famous as an author of non-fiction books. During both invasions
Howard had begun to write feature articles himself which he learned to
market successfully.
After duty in Paris and Brussels, Howard flew home to London to welcome
his newborn son whom he named Richard, after Richard- the-Lionhearted. His
joy was short-lived however as his next assignment was to visit and write
a report on the Belsen concentration camp not far from Hanover in Germany,
which had just been liberated. His journey ‘into the horror pit’, as he
called it, was indeed ten days of descent into what had been a sub-human
world. The emancipated inmates, the piles of rotting corpses and the tales
of unspeakable crimes against humanity gave stark clarity to his
understanding of why Nazism had to be stopped whatever the cost in human
life. Later, soon after the surrender of Germany, he was further reminded
of this imperative when he was in charge of the British Press Section at
the Nuremberg Trials.
The end of the war also saw the end of the marriage between Howard and
Gwen – they had grown too far apart during those terrible six years. Gwen
returned to Australia and her family with young Richard, while Howard was
to spend another five years in Germany, first as an official of the
Control Commission, and then as the director of public relations and
advertising for NAAFI (Navy, Army and Airforce Institutes) in Western
Europe.
The year 1951 saw Howard at the age of forty-five returning to Sydney, yet
the call to travel and search for ‘something’ remained with him. The
‘finger of God’ answered this call in 1955 by prompting him to attend yoga
classes in the Adyar Headquarters of the Theosophical Society. By a mutual
mistake, he met his future wife, Iris, waiting at the closed doorway to
the yoga school. Choosing the newly-discovered Liberal Catholic Church –
founded and staffed by officials of the Theosophical Society - as their
wedding venue, there began a quickening of their- hitherto dormant-
spiritual quest. Soon after, they both went to a lecture at the
Self-Realisation Fellowship founded by Paramahansa Yogananda, the author
of ‘Autobiography of a Yogi.’
During a lesson practising one of Yogananda’s chants, Howard was flooded
with bliss: "So much so, my consciousness disappeared. Nothing existed
anywhere but the unutterable bliss of being. The experience was a
reaffirmation of the Reality I sought. Brief tastes of it, such as this,
whet the appetite for the bottomless chalice of ambrosia, and to find it
the pilgrim moves onward, ever onward." And so, with both searching for
how to attain the spiritual dimension, the year-long married couple sailed
for Athens in 1960 on the first leg of what would prove to be a most
extraordinary adventure.
In the spring of 1961, they joined the twenty-member Subud colony at
Coombe Springs outside London. During the next two years in England and
Spain, Howard earned his living writing articles on yoga and psychic
phenomena. This work was accompanied by the publication of his first book,
‘Yoga for Busy People’, which sold well for many years. His psychic
research led them into the Theosophical Society’s library in the West End
which in turn led them to be accepted as students in the School of the
Ancient Wisdom at the Theosophical Society Headquarters at Adyar, in
Madras, India.
Based at Adyar, they ventured forth and spent time with the young Dalai
Lama and imbibed a banquet of spiritual understanding through meeting many
extraordinary figures including the renowned J. Krishnamurthi, Swami
Ranganatananda of the Ramakrishna Mission, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and Tat
Wallah Baba, among others.
Then came the truly pivotal event in Howard’s life; his journey to Sri
Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram, Prasanthi Nilayam, near Bangalore. This not only
opened his spiritual heart to an extent he could never have even dreamed
of, but also inspired the writing of his best-selling book ‘Sai Baba, Man
of Miracles’. He had witnessed truly astonishing miracles – including the
covering of a large Shirdi Sai Baba statue by holy ash created by Baba’s
hand inside an upturned small empty urn, and the production of a lingam
from Sai Baba’s mouth – and heard of many more miracles from other
devotees. He began his writing.
However, much time and extensive research would be demanded of him in
biographies of the two founders of the Theosophical Society, Colonel H.S.
Olcott and Madam H.P. Blavatsky. Writing of the two biographies throughout
1967, funded under a Writer’s Fellowship from the Kern Foundation in
America. The first of the two, ‘Hammer on the Mountain’, is a detailed and
inspiring account of one of the most outstanding men that ever lived -
Henry Steel Olcott.
The second biography, ‘When Daylight Comes’, on the controversial Russian
noblewoman, Madam Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, would be completed upon their
return to Australia in 1971 and 1972.
Howard’s attention was now directed towards his writing of ‘Man of
Miracles’. Saturated with first-hand accounts of Baba’s miracles, told
with the copy-writer’s economy of language and interwoven with a deep
understanding of the Avatar’s teachings, ‘Man of Miracles’, was first
published in 1971. It has since published in every major language, selling
tens of thousands of copies and led "many people to the Light."
In the midst of writing ‘Man of Miracles’ from their base at Adyar, Howard
and Iris still found time to visit the ashram of the late Sri Aurobindo at
Pondicherry, thus beginning a life-long study of this great spiritual
master’s published works. Then, after the completion of ‘Man of Miracles’,
they set off in the footsteps of that earlier writer/seeker, Paul Brunton,
to visit the sacred mountain of Arunachala at whose feet rests the ashram
of the late Ramana Maharshi, famed for his teachings on self-enquiry.
There they spent time with Arthur Osborne and his wife: "It was this
gifted spiritual searcher who wrote the book ‘The Incredible Sai Baba’ (on
Shirdi Sai) which had done so much in our lives", as well as the seminal
work, ‘The Life and Teachings of Ramana Maharshi’.
After six years in India, Howard and Iris travelled back to Australia,
settling in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Following four years of
absence from their beloved guru in sacred India, in 1974 Howard and Iris
were now able to return for another stay. This not only provided them with
wonderful spiritual nourishment, again in close physical proximity to Sai
Baba for much of the time, but also further material for Howard’s second
book on Sai Baba, ‘Sai Baba Avatar’, which he wrote after their 1976
return to Australia. This book chronicles a further host of miraculous
events and expands in more depth upon the timeless spiritual philosophy
taught by Sai Baba: "But perhaps my main reason for writing was that,
after a period of rumination and contemplation on the subject, followed by
a return journey into the realm of Divine Power, Love and Glory, I felt a
strong need to say more, to make one more attempt to express that which is
ultimately inexpressible."
In 1982 he published his third book on Sathya Sai Baba, ‘Sai Baba:
Invitation to Glory’, which not only adds to the storehouse of recorded
miracles, but also paints a literary mosaic of how Sai Baba’s teachings
can be applied in everyday life.
Howard made good use of another fellowship from the Kern Foundation to
write on a topic he had been researching ever since their days at Coombes
Springs when he could immerse himself in the London library of the Society
for Psychical Research - our experience after dying. First published in
1984 as ‘The Undiscovered Country’ and again in 1990 as ‘Beyond Death: The
Undiscovered Country’, the book begins with scholarly essays on how the
subject of death has been viewed throughout history. Dr Elizabeth
Kubler-Ross acclaimed the book: "a masterpiece’ and ‘a remarkable
scholarly study".
In the year when he turned eighty-three, it is understandable that Howard
thought his writing days were over: "Through retinal haemorrhages in both
eyes, I was quite unable to read or write. All I had was minimal
peripheral vision in one eye." But Sai Baba patted his chest and commanded
him to write another book, sharing what was in his heart, and to return
with the manuscript in two years. So, with Baba not permitting a
co-author, and relying now on dictating and auditorial editing, Howard set
forth to carry out the instruction of his guru. Sensing that his many
readers were keen to hear more of how one man’s footsteps could lead
unerringly to become the Avatar’s story-teller read in over twenty
languages, Howard wrote his most autobiographical and heart-felt work:
‘Where the Road Ends’. It is an absorbing and uplifting story of a true
spiritual seeker searching indefatigably to discover the deeper purpose
for which we are all born.
By 1996, when he was eighty-nine, ‘Sai Inner Views and Insights’ was being
avidly read worldwide. The first few chapters had been written before the
passing of his dearest friend and wife, Iris. With grief overwhelming him,
Howard received a message from Sathya Sai Baba to visit him in India.
Christmas, 1994, found the now-famous blind devotee again at the feet of
his master: He was again spurred on to write the remainder of the book.
For many, the most touching and revealing chapter is in the form of a
long, intimate and celebratory letter to Iris. In closing that personal
tribute, he writes, "Death may seem to take all away and cut all ties, but
it cannot cut the link of the love that is forever. So I can still sign
myself your ever-loving husband, Howard." A remarkable chapter is titled,
‘Why Fear’, giving Howard’s account of how fear of death was banished
forever from his life as he was standing beside a heroic tank commander
amidst bursting artillery shells during the great battle of El Alamein in
the Egyptian desert in 1940.
‘The Lights of Home’, published in 2002 when Howard was ninety-five, is a
book vibrating with love and liberating in its visionary tenor. Howard,
blessed with that self-honesty and sensitivity that accompanies the
drawing closer to death, writes exquisitely of his parents, precious
conversations with Sai Baba, the yogas, close friends and his now vast
perception of history and understanding of the timeless philosophy of
spirit.
His final book, ‘The Way to Love Divine’, was published in 2004. He could
hear the rippling of the current on the ‘River Jordan’, as he called the
final crossing-over point; he could sense the awaiting embrace of his
beloved Sai Baba and treasured wife, Iris. Living life to the fullest in
every minute of every day remaining to him, Howard Murphet continued to
work until he breathed his last. He leaves not only a legacy as
Australia’s wisest spiritual voice but also as the international writer
who brought many people to the truth. His books are timeless, as is the
example of a life well lived.
Online Source:(Posted on 24.10.2004 by Ross Woodward)
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