Product Description The spiritual life story of Ethel Merston based on her diaries and recollections is an important historical work, as well as a keen insight into many of the seminal teachers of her times. Merston was one of Gurdjieff's first English pupils and lived at the Prieure from 1922 until 1927. Her seriousness and organizational abilities led Gurdjieff to put her in charge in his absences. Fritz Peters gives a wonderful account of what she had to put up with (he gives her the name Miss Madison) in his Boyhood with Gurdjieff. In India, she lived at Ramana Maharshi's ashram for many years. She gives a first-person account of his death and also the meeting between The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and Anandamayi Ma (with whom she often traveled). She also attended many of Krishnamurti's talks and seminars in the 1930s, was a friend of Sunyata, Alain Danielou, Krishna Prem and Swami Omananda. In the 1950s she was initiated into Subud by Pak Subuh at J. G. Bennett's Coombe Springs study house. At Mendham, she met again her friends from her Gurdjieff days - Mme de Salzmann, Mme Ouspensky, Olga de Hartmann and Peggy Flinsch - and was introduced to Lord John Pentland.
A Remarkable LifeOctober 21, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Why read a spiritual biography about someone you've never heard of? Ethel Merston led a remarkable life and had opportunities to work with the preeminent spiritual masters of the twentieth century.
Anyone on his or her own spiritual journey is presented with opportunities that either move you toward your goal or away from it. Sometimes we don't recognize the opportunity and sometimes we turn away from it, rationalizing our decision, without questioning who is making the decision. Mary Ellen Korman gives us an inside look at Merston's life and her choices. How would you react to the emotionally twisting episodes with Fritz Peters at G. I. Gurdjieff's Prieure, or a direct exchange with the Hindu Sage Ramana Maharshi in which you are told that your "ideas of exterior or interior exist only so long as you do not accept your real identity"? This spiritual biography operates on several levels. Based largely on Merston's journals, A Woman's Work is an intriguing read about the life and decisions of a particular seeker, that neither embellishes nor judges, while also holding up a mirror, providing us with the opportunity to put into question the decisions we make on our own spiritual journey.
Ethel Merston, The life of a SeekerOctober 12, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book gives a detailed account of the life of a very peculiar woman who was attracted by ancient eastern philosophies Having the advantage a family who provided what was necessary for living she turned her initial interest for travels and nature into a serious study for the truth that Ancient philosophies could give her She challenged the conventional views of her time and preferred a life that will lead her to meet some of the most influential teachers alive. For anyone interested in studying her life, the life of a seeker, and the many lives that Ethel Merston touched, it will be a valuable help, particularly interesting are her days at the Prieure with G.I. Gurdjieff and her years of living in India with Ramana Maharshi
Discovering an "unknown" and her Spiritual QuestOctober 9, 2008 3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Ethel Merston, whose lifelong search for the truth of herself led her to the greatest sages of her time---Gurdjieff, Ramana Maharshi, Anandamayi Ma, and Sunyata--has her story richly told by Mary Ellen Korman in this extensively researched book. Rejected by her mother at infancy, she never allowed that important part of her, the feeling center, to become fully realized, and it colored her relationships as she traveled throughout India in her quest. Ms. Korman's account of Ethel's spiritual search is thorough and beautifully written.
A Woman's Work an original and enlightening readOctober 7, 2008 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
When I began this book, I had no idea who the woman was in the intriguing title. Some of the other names were familiar, but whoever the person was who worked with these famous sages was not a known quantity to me. By the end of the book, I had come to an intimate understanding, admiration and appreciation of this woman, Ethel Merston. It is a life story that appeals on many levels - a young woman, externally fearless but internally fragile, leaves her upper class environs and sets out on a life-long journey of spiritual seeking. Contrary to the image a "spiritual seeker" often conjures, Ethel does anything but retreat from life. She travels the world, meeting people at all junctures that become lifelong friends, seeking meaning in life with an unyielding honesty and matter-of-factness that is astonishing.
She settled in India, taking the country as her real home and found her lifelong teacher, Ramana Maharshi, with whom she worked until his death in 1950. She was a gifted and practical person who generously gave of herself - she knew the villagers needed vegetables, so she organized a vegetable cooperative that fed hundreds; she was a gifted diplomat and became known as a fair and just arbiter of disputes; she had an ability to take difficult situations and know what to do, a natural leader. There was not a shred of self-pity in her - she approached situations with a matter-of-factness that drew people to her in situations that demanded fairness and maturity. An interesting anecdote illustrates this quality: a man in the village was jealous of her and did whatever he could to make her life miserable; but when this man's son was the victim of a racket that caused the son to be jailed, Ethel was able to get him released. She writes "The fact that I had done this for my enemy's son was what touched him most, not realizing that there was no personal feeling against him on my part, and that I had but done for him as I would have for any other man wrongfully dealt by." The rich descriptions of her relationships with friends and teachers, as well as ceremonies and activities in the villages, taken from detailed memoirs, give the reader a real sense of the time in which she lived - the tumultuous colorful India of mid-20th century.
Ethel Merston is unflaggingly honest with herself. She credits her first teacher, Gurdjieff, with giving her the basis on which to work with herself, and at the end of her life writes that without him, none of the understanding she eventually came to would have been possible. A child of unaffectionate parents, she battles her whole life with loneliness and feeling unlovable. Interesting that this book portrays her with such love, as befitted a life lived for others.
Ms. Korman writes with clarity and simplicity, letting Ethel tell her own story, and not getting in the way with analysis and explanation. It's a book that gives much to the reader - an ordinary human being living an extraordinary life. I felt much nourished after getting to know Ethel Merston.
A Womans's Work Illuminates My Life.October 7, 2008 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
A Woman's Work is an absorbing account of Ethel Merston's association with many of the spiritual leaders of the early 20th century. Ethel Merston left her descriptions and impressions of Gurdjieff, Ramana Maharshi, Anandamayi Ma, Pak Subuh, Edgar Cayce and many others.
Mary Ellen Korman has researched all the available records and woven a wonderful story that provides a detailed sense of Ethel Merston's life long spiritual search. I found clues to the contrasts between life with Gurdjieff and life with spiritual leaders in India. My own insights are refined by having access to Ethel Merston's accounts and Korman's descriptions of her life.
Merston tells of the changes and conflicts experienced by Gurdjieff's students after his death: The search for another teacher. How students found or forgot what they were looking for. The breaking apart of communities of seekers. She recounts her search after Ramana Maharshi's death.
Many of these people that Ethel Merston worked with were major influences on the "Age of Aquarius." The book helps me understand the culture that I grew up in.
