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THE
STORY OF RAMALA It
was in 1968 that Dorothy Smith, a spiritual medium of great experience and
the minister of a spiritualist church in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, in the
USA, was on a working holiday in London, England, lecturing at The
Spiritualist Association of Great Britain in Belgrave Square. At one of the talks that she gave there
she saw David Jevons and Ann Toye sitting in the audience. Now Dorothy had known Ann for several
years in the USA but this was the first time that she had met David and, more
importantly, seen them together. She
intuitively felt that they were destined to marry and she was inspired by her
inner voice to offer them a channelling.
In this channelling, held some weeks later in her apartment in
Brighton, she went into a deep trance, which permitted a Master from the
White Brotherhood on the higher realms of life to speak through her. Master Light, for that was the pseudonym
of the Master who spoke through her, told David and Ann that they were soul
affinities, who were destined to marry in this life, and that they had agreed
before they came down into physical incarnation to work together in order to
ground a spiritual point of consciousness on the Earth. However several months were to pass by
before their souls were able to overcome their strong personality resistance
to this amazing revelation! Then,
responding to deep, intuitive feelings, David Jevons and Ann Toye married in
Old Greenwich, Connecticut, in the USA, on March 27th 1970. This ceremony marked the beginning of
their spiritual work together and was responsible for the birth of Ramala,
the name coming from the common part of their soul names, which were given to
them by Master Light in their marriage blessing. Ramala was the name, the spiritual umbrella, under which they
chose to disseminate their spiritual understandings, because in the early
days all the teachings were published anonymously. Ramala is not the source of the teachings. It is only the name of the organisation
that is responsible for disseminating the teachings. Only a few months after their marriage David and Ann began to channel spiritual teachings received from a higher plane of consciousness. The Ramala Teachings, as they became to be known, were at first circulated only amongst close friends, but soon they began to arouse a wider interest. Leaflets and booklets were then produced, leading to the publication in 1978 of their first book The Revelation of Ramala. Due to popular demand, a second book, The Wisdom of Ramala, was published in 1986, followed by a third book, The Vision of Ramala, in 1991. These books have also been published in the German, Dutch, French, Spanish and Danish languages and have gained wide acceptance all over the world. It is said that the test of a good book is whether or not it still has appeal after ten years, i.e. to the next generation. The Ramala trilogy has been reprinted several times, is still in print and is in demand all over the world today and is transforming the lives of spiritual seekers twenty years after the first book was published. Why have the Ramala Teachings struck a chord in so many people? A glance inside any one of the books will reveal the answer. There you will find a simplicity of language rare in esoteric books. The mystical, the cosmical, the spiritual, the everyday problems of life are all embraced in terms which both the established seeker and the beginner will be able to understand. The Ramala teachings give a clear explanation of the reality of life on the Earth, of the divine forces that overshadow our lives and of the evolutionary path on which Humanity is set. They also offer valuable insights on the current state of the world and warn of the trials and tribulations that will almost inevitably occur if Humanity does not change its ways. Some of the Ramala prophecies have already come to pass. In the early days David and Ann Jevons used to disseminate the Ramala Teachings by post from their home in England under the name of The Ramala Society. However, as their readership expanded rapidly and as the desire for a personal contact with the channels began to manifest, it became obvious that they had to change their modus operandi. So in 1975 they moved to Glastonbury, Somerset, in England, the ancient Isle of Avalon, where they bought the old manor house known as Chalice Hill House. The Ramala Society put down its roots in this sacred place and became The Ramala Centre. During the next 22 years countless numbers of spiritual seekers walked through its front door to make contact with the channels of the Ramala Teachings and to obtain a better understanding of their message for Humanity. Regular meditations, channellings and counselling sessions were held. Seminars and workshops were given. David and Ann travelled extensively all over the world, from Alaska to Australia, from Antigua to The Netherlands, talking about their spiritual understandings. They operated Chalice Hill House as a spiritual retreat centre, a place of pilgrimage, and became accustomed to welcoming over 5,000 visitors a year. They created and led a small community of like-minded people to help run the centre and to demonstrate the right practice of the Ramala Teachings. All of this took place whilst they were fulfilling their normal physical duties, Ann as the mother of three children and David as an airline pilot with British Airways. In 1989 the channelling process
stopped after almost twenty years of continuous communication. The Ramala teachers gave two reasons for
this action. Firstly, if the teacher
is always present to give support, then the student will never learn to stand
on his or her own two feet. Secondly,
it is self-evident that all forms of channelling promote duality or
separation from God. The source of a
channelling is nearly always defined as being separate from God, as being a
servant or a messenger of God. This
very process encourages people to look without rather than within, yet the
path to the Godhead is an inner not an outer journey along which the ‘I’ and
God merge to become ‘we’ and, finally, ‘one’. The ultimate source of all truth, all wisdom all guidance is to
be found within, not without.
Channelling can only be a stepping-stone along this path to
‘oneness’. David and Ann recognise
that although the channelling process was a vital and necessary part of their
spiritual awakening, it was not an end in itself. For them channelling was a beginning rather than an ending. It was not without significance that in
1987 they had made their first journey out to India to meet Sri Sathya Sai
Baba, who is one of the greatest living exponents of the ancient Vedantic
Tradition which teaches that all is One and that all separation from the
Godhead is an illusion. In 1996, after over a quarter of a
century of continual service, David and Ann Jevons began to feel the need for
a change. Being in their sixties they
became aware that the physical and the financial demands of running a
community and a ten bedroom residential centre were too great and too time
consuming for them. They realised
that the physical outer world was restricting their inner journey. So in 1997 they sold Chalice Hill House
and moved The Ramala Centre to the house next door, which had formerly been
the stable block of the old manor house.
The Old Stables became the new home of The Ramala Centre. It became a day centre rather than a
residential centre, although a small number of guests could still be
accommodated. At the same time David
and Ann were inspired to move to British Columbia in Canada, where they now
live, on their little horse farm in Penticton, overlooking Lake Okanagan, in
British Columbia, some 400kms east of Vancouver. However they do still visit England from time to time and are
willing to travel around the world to give talks and workshops about their
spiritual understandings. They are
always ready to talk to like-minded people about their spiritual journey and
they can be contacted either by letter or by e-mail. In April 2003, due to a falling off in
the number of visitors to The Ramala Centre, the trustees of The Ramala
Trust, in order to reduce the Ramala Centre's operating costs, decided to
close the day Centre down. Today the Ramala Centre's work is carried out
solely through the Ramala website.
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