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Rashid Maxwell was born in London under the gathering storm clouds of the Second World War. He happily survived both the war and a middle class education of boarding schools, Oxford University and 2 years in the Royal Navy. When his natural rebelliousness matured, he became an artist. For fifteen years he exhibited, lectured in fine art and pioneered in the field of art as therapy.

He began to feel a discordance in his art between what could be and what was; a conflict between heart and head. It moved him to take to the wild hills of the Welsh Marches with his wife and children; to a closer tie with nature.

Here he farmed organically and self-sufficiently until, one morning on a snowy road, he had a close encounter with a 44 tonne petrol tanker. It was a reminder that was to carry him and his family from the misty hills of the borderlands to the heat and vivid colours of Poona, to a momentous meeting with the enlightened master Osho. ‘My life had a fresh beginning,’ he says.

After Osho′s death in 1990, he has lived and worked in many countries; in cities and in deserts, in suburbs and, as now, in rural quietude. He has lived, as he often did in the commune, by designing and implementing many eco-environmental projects, including reafforestation, a wetland bird sanctuary and a nature reserve.

He has continued to draw and paint. In addition he has designed and built a number of halls of meditation and Zendos. He has written for a number of prestigious environmental and spiritual magazines and blogsites, has appeared on BBC TV and radio, and has published three volumes of poetry and a spiritual adventure story, a partly autobiographical account of the journey on which we all must one day find ourselves – The Point of Vanishing.

Now he lives in Devon, writes, paints and keeps bees. His delights are with his partner, his children and their children and his friends: with fine carpentry and watching birds, with travelling in India and growing fruits and vegetables. And with walking the pathless path of inner exploration.


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