"...give any information you have garnered to a fellow traveler along the Way. Why? Because the same information would have helped the person who compiled it if it had been given to him, and that is why he compiled it --- and that is why it should be offered to others along the Way."

An interpretation from the works of:
WEI WU WEI

The identity of Wei Wu Wei was not revealed at the time of the publication of his first book in 1958, at the age of 63, nor was he "known" outside of a certain circle of a select few, as either Wei Wu Wei OR Terence Gray. He postioned himself to remain anonymous and it was only after his death that his true identity became known to a more general spiritual audience. The 16 years following the publication of his first book saw the appearance of seven subsequent books, including his final work under the further pseudonym 'O.O.O.' in 1974.

It is apparent from his writings that Wei Wu Wei had studied in some depth both Eastern and Western philosophy and metaphysics, as well as the more esoteric teachings of all the great religions. It can also be understood from the writings that he regarded himself as merely one of many seeking so-called 'liberation', the works themselves being seen in part, as a record of his quest. During that quest he is known to have met many spiritual luminaries including the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, Lama Anagarika Govinda, Dr. Hubert Benoit, John Blofeld, Douglas Harding, Paul Brunton, Robert Linssen, Arthur Osborne, Robert Powell, Albert Sorensen (Shunyata), and Dr. D. T. Suzuki.

Wei Wu Wei, born Terence Gray in 1895 into a well-established Irish family, was raised on an estate outside Cambridge, England, and received a thorough education, including studies at Oxford University. Early in life he pursued an interest in Egyptology which culminated in the publication of two books on ancient Egyptian history and culture in 1923. This was followed by a period of involvement in the arts in Britain in the 20's and 30's as a theorist, theatrical producer, creator of radical 'dance-dramas', publisher of several related magazines and author of two related books.

Gray was a contemporary of fellow British author and playwright W. Somerset Maugham. During the period 1921 to 1939, Maugham published several highly successful plays, including The Circle, The Constant Wife, The Letter, and The Breadwinner, while his short stories included The Trembling of a Leaf(1921), On a Chinese Screen (1922), First Person Singular(1931) and The Summing Up published in 1938.

However, the two were often at loggerheads regarding plays and their presentation. Maugham's plays were fairly traditional and sold well to the public while Gray's approach was much more iconoclastic.

In 1926 Gray established the Cambridge Festival Theatre in the British provinces near the mysterious Gog Magog Hills (which he owned at one time) with the avowed purpose of "attacking" realistic acting and production. The theatre had no curtain, proscenium arch or orchestra pit and patterns of light were projected against a cyclorama in lieu of scenery and platforms and ramps serve as set dressing.

Interestingly enough, although Gray and Maugham were never friends in the classical sense, and it is thought they didn't even like each other --- it seems they purposely chose, or at least Maugham did, to travel in separate circles as they moved through life --- they found themselves increasingly drawn toward areas and people that they both knew and traveled with.

Somewhere along the way Gray exhausted his interest in the avant garde theater and to a large extent turned his thoughts towards philosophy and metaphysics. This led to a period of travel throughout Asia, including time spent at the Ramana Ashram located along the base of the holy mountain Arunachala, Tiruvannamalai, India. The ashram was abode to the same venerated Indian holy man Maugham visited and called Shri Ganesha in his novel The Razor's Edge.

In 1977 the Wanderling, who had been on R & R in Hong Kong in the mid 1960s while in the military, was visting again, only as a civilian just prior to going to Jamaica for two years. His Mentor coincidently was the same person Maugham used as his model for the main character in The Razor's Edge, and had introduced him to Wei Wu Wei's friend Shunyata in 1974. During the Wanderling's visit to Hong Kong, who had gone there to seek audience with the famous translator Upasaka Lu K'uan Yu, a mutual acquaintance of Shunyata that was familar with the Wei Wu Wei party traveling in Hong Kong for basically the same reason, became privy to the information that the Wanderling was in the city and, in an interesting set of Karma and Conditions [1], put together a meeting between the two.

'Wei Wu Wei's influence, while never widespread, has been profound upon many of those who knew him personally, upon those with whom he corresponded, among them British mathematician and author G. Spencer-Brown and Galen Sharp, and upon many who have read his works.

Wei Wu Wei died in 1986 at the age of 90.

For an equally as interesting and as equally as mysterious person along the same philosophical lines as Wei Wu Wei, for your reading pleasure please consider as well the little known and viritually anonymous "American Zen master" Alfred Pulyan. Another virtually unknown master cast in the same mold as Wei Wu Wei and Pulyan, and well worth considering is Franklin Merrell-Wolff, an American of great Spiritual Attainment. See also:

SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI: THE LAST AMERICAN DARSHAN
RECOUNTING A YOUNG BOY'S NEARLY INSTANT TRANSFORMATION INTO THE ABSOLUTE DURING HIS ONLY DARSHAN WITH THE MAHARSHI

It should be noted that Adam Osborne, who, as a young boy grew up at the Ramana Ashram and the son of one of the foremost Ramana biographers Arthur Osborne, played a prominent role in the Last American Darshan as linked above.

Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where
we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience
and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.

(PLEASE CLICK)

AWAKENED TEACHERS FORUM

GASSHO
(please click)

SEE THE HIGHLY RELATED WEI WU WEI SITE:

MORE CRITICAL CONCERNS WITH AWAKENING 101

The following is a list of the eight books attributed to Wei Wu Wei and the order in which they were published:

• FINGERS POINTING TOWARDS THE MOON; Reflections of a Pilgrim on the Way
  1958, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London (out of print)

• WHY LAZARUS LAUGHED; The essential Doctrine Zen-Advaita-Tantra
  1960, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London (out of print)

• ASK THE AWAKENED; The Negative Way
  1963, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London. (2nd, 1974)(out of print)

• ALL ELSE IS BONDAGE; Non-Volitional Living
  1964, Hong Kong University Press. (Reprinted 1970, 1982).

• OPEN SECRET
  1965, Hong Kong University Press (Reprinted 1970, 1982)

• THE TENTH MAN
  1965, Hong Kong University Press (Reprinted 1970, 1982)

• POSTHUMOUS PIECES
  1968, Hong Kong University Press (Out of print).

• UNWORLDLY WISE; As the Owl Remarked to the Rabbit
  1974, Hong Long University Press. (Out of Print).