To Light One Candle

Author(s): Pramoda Chitrabhanu
Publisher: East West Unity Press Ananda Ashram New York

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CLARE ROSENFIELD
Clare, also known as Brahmi, is a poet, meditation teacher, and certified social worker who brings a spiritual outlook to her work with clients. She received her M.S. degree from the Columbia School of Social Work in 1989, and is presently a play therapist with children with special emotional needs. A Smith College graduate, she eamed an M.A. in French from Columbia University in 1965 and taught French in Boston, Lagos, and Bangkok.
Clare was introduced to the world of Eastern wisdom thanks to her husband, Dr. Allan Rosenfield, Dean of the Columbia School of Public Health, whose work in the 1960's took them to Thailand. Both of their children were born in Bangkok. Their son Paul, a Brown University graduate, is presently a medical student at Columbia University. Their daughter Jill is in her final year at Bowdoin College, majoring in religion and art.
It was during seven years overseas that Clare's childhood quest for inner peace, originally rooted in the ideals of Judaism, was ignited anew. She became immersed in Buddhism and studied insight meditation with the present Buddhist Patriarch in Thailand. While in Bangkok, Clare co-authored Ten Lives of the Buddha: Siamese Temple Paintings and Jataka Tales.
Once back in the United States, she continued her quest with the Jain, Hindu, and Buddhist masters mentioned in the Acknowledgements, as well as with Sufi master, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. Inspired by the life-affirming Jain philosophy, she became a yoga/ meditation teacher and a vegetarian, made several visits to sacred places in India, edited two books on Jain philosophy, and wrote a biography of Shri Chitrabhanu. She also published Reverence for All Life and Vegetarianism and two poetry booklets, dance upon the winds swept cloudless and seasonals. Her third book of poems is in process.
Throughout the past twenty-three years, whether meditating in a Jain temple, Friends' meeting house, synagogue, intensive journal workshop, Vipassana course, or Sufi retreat, Clare has brought with her the ecumenical spirit while seeking out both the profoundly mystical and the utterly practical. This book represents her conviction that when we open our hearts to the wisdom of the East as well as to that of the West, we enrich our experience immeasurably and live as global visionaries dedicated to the diversity and unity of all life.
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