This pamphlet is a dialogue between a teacher and a group of enquirers. It is the way Curle decides to share what he has learnt about ‘the great questions of our existence’ or, put in psychological terms, ‘how we work and what we are’.
In his background Curle was the first professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University and was also well-versed in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and psychology. These two strands permeate this pamphlet.
Curle argues that the original teachings of religions are of love, compassion and mercy, but that these teachings have been subverted by organised religion. Hence we have conflict and war.
The pamphlet tackles a wide range of topics under the following headings: salvation, compassion and wisdom; what has gone wrong; the three poisons (ignorance, craving and hatred); awareness; non-dualism; questions of gender; and practice (which includes prayer and meditation).
Some of Curle’s underlying ideas are the interdependence of all things; impermanency; the illusion of the separate self; using the word ‘unskilful’ rather than ‘wrong’; and God as ‘the All, the Everything in which we are all joined’.