Alun Buffry's Blog
Opinion
Wednesday 3 April 2024
Thursday 28 March 2024
Thursday 7 March 2024
Press Release: Norwich author has facebook group with almost 80,000 members
Press Release: Norwich author has facebook group with almost
80,000 members
7 March 2024
No Embargo
In 2014, Norwich author and UEA Chemistry graduate published his
first of many book on Amazon: "All About My Hat The Hippy
Trail 1972".
The book, strangely telling from the
point of view of a"hat", recounts Buffry's experience after
graduation and setting out eastwards in a small van with several
other graduates and little money. After several months he
arrived in India via Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and
Pakistan, meeting many people of different cultures, religions and
lifestyles on the way, a journey where drugs became an integral
part
of the experience.
Such a journey would be near-impossible
today, with many more dangers than in 1972, despite that we now
have
the likes of mobile phone and the internet, guide books and
gurus,
Alun Buffry says: "I did not set off either to
run away or to find anything but simply wanted to travel and see
part
of this wonderful world.
"Although I
ended up ill with dysentery and infectious hepatitis, penniless
and
hospitalised in Delhi, Kabul and Tehran, I would not swap the
life-changing experience for anything. Now at 74 years, I look
back
in amazement that I actually survived.
"In 2015,
after writing my memories of those days, I founded a Facebook
group
called 60s, '70s &' 80s Trails to India and Beyond. Remarkably
it now has almost 80,000 members from all over the world and
contains
a wealth of stories and pictures from people that made similar
journeys and people that live in the countries we visited."
Since
the publication of the book, Buffry has written over a dozen more,
recounting his other travels and experiences including his time in
prison for cannabis, poetry and science fiction. Having taught
himself to format and present his books, he has also offered a
free
service encouraging others to tell their own stories, most of
which
are also on Amazon and Kindle and linked though his web sire at
ABeFree Publishing.
Contact Alun Buffry at
alun@buffry.org.uk or find him easily on Facebook.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0993210716/ref=nosim?tag=webbooks05
https://www/buffry.org.uk/abefreepublishing.html
Monday 29 January 2024
How to Walk on GLASS by Professor Ron Greaves
There is a well-known story told in India that describes how an imprisoned man was forewarned of life-threatening danger after hearing one line uttered by a saint. Walking past the gathered crowd, he had only heard the sentence “Goddesses never cast shadows!”
When later tricked with a fake goddess by the jailer to prove his guilt, he remembered the one line. This following incident is my “Goddesses never cast shadows” moment. It is not a parable from Indian folklore, but a life-transforming moment in real time.
I had been fortunate to meet Prem Rawat in India when he was only 11 years old. I was present at Heathrow Airport when he arrived from India two years later on 17th June 1971 and accompanied him to all of his events in the UK for the month that he stayed until leaving for the USA. I stood next to him on the first Pyramid Stage when he spoke at Glastonbury on June 21, only four days after arriving in the west.
After running out of money to pay the rent on the property we had located in the fashionable Chelsea district of London, we could only offer accommodation in our volunteer community house in the less affluent area of Golders Green in North London. Instead of expressing disappointment, the young Prem Rawat was excited to move into a three-bedroom house already overcrowded with his enthusiastic students. A room was made ready for him.
“I have always loved wisdom stories
ever since my grandmother sat me
on her knee as a small child.
On the first night, a host of young hippies gathered in the downstairs front room in the hope of hearing Prem speak. I was upstairs with him in his bedroom when he asked me to go down and speak to everyone about my understanding of Self-Knowledge. He declared that he might attend the gathering himself later. It was with trepidation that I spoke as I was aware that Prem could hear every word as clearly as my audience in the room.
I have always loved wisdom stories ever since my grandmother sat me on her knee as a small child and read to me from her picture Bible. In India, I had heard so many from Prem and the older students who had been alive at the time of Prem’s father and teacher, Shri Maharaj Ji. I cherished these tales and had committed many to memory. As I spoke, I embellished my talk with a few such tales. In mid-flow, Prem walked into the room and sat next to me in a vacant chair. I stopped speaking.
“Finish the story you are telling,” he instructed with a smile directed straight at me.
I completed my story quickly and joined the others to listen to Prem. He looked straight at me and said, “I have a story just for you.”
It went like this.
Two followers of an Indian saint were given one of those old-fashioned tests. The saint sat on a platform in a field. He scattered the field with broken glass and instructed his two passionate acolytes to come to him. One ran in bare feet and collapsed in pain before halfway there. The other knelt on the grass and crawled through the glass-strewn field, picking the broken shards out of the way.
No explanation was given for the story.
Prem continued to address the full audience. I didn’t need the explanation. All my life I had been impulsive by nature, rushing in where angels fear to tread, as the saying goes. After listening to Prem’s story, I resolved to pick my way much more carefully through life and stop cutting the Gordian Knot with a blow of a sword. I mix metaphors, but I think you get the point.
That deep insight into my nature from the wisest person I have ever met has saved me from trouble again and again. Just one story. Imagine the benefits I have received from the countless times I have heard Prem Rawat speak over the last 54 years. Wisdom is very precious.
ASDA cashless
Simple: if ASDA will no longer be accaepting cash, I will no longer be accepting ASDA.
Same goes for Pizza Hut, Bill's restaurant, Yo Sushi
Saturday 30 December 2023
My Piece of Peace - my story towards the gift
Friday 8 December 2023
Wednesday 6 December 2023
Self-check-out at supermarkets
If
supermarkets want me to self-checkout they will need to pay me minimum
wage for minimum one hour and all the other staff bonuses. Simple.