Excerpted from the book “Conversas Sobre Trigueirinho” (Conversations about Trigueirinho) – Volume 2, by Ana Regina Nogueira (published by IRDIN Editora), which contains an overview of the life of Trigueirinho, including meetings of his students with PB as well as of his own meeting with PB, excerpted here.
Two masters of insight and free spirits - Trigueirinho (1931 -2018) and Paul Brunton (1891 -1981) - had an infinitely creative relationship. Brunton, the English journalist, writer, and philosopher – with eleven books published during his lifetime – was a Fifth Initiation Adept of the Brotherhood of Sirius. According to Trigueirinho, Paul Brunton was one of the most cultured contemporary philosophers because he was inspired by the level of the Adepts, that is: “A being who, having crossed the thresholds of natural and human evolution, becomes a Master, a member of Celestial Hierarchies.”
After exchanging letters between May and June 1980, Brunton (also known by the name of PB) agreed to meet Trigueirinho, who then went from Brazil to Vevey, Switzerland. There something wonderful but hidden, happened. During the ten-hour meeting on July 20, Trigueirinho received absolute self- confidence to continue his journey of spiritual instruction and for his work forming spiritual groups with those who sought him out.
At the end of the meeting, a student of Paul Brunton accompanied Trigueirinho to the train station1. Along the way, he heard the memorable statement: "Today was the most important day of my life."
At the age of 22 (in 1953), Trigueirinho was drawn to Italy, where he remained until 1958, with the aim of studying at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia di Roma (the Center of Experimental Cinematography of Rome), in order to advance his work as filmmaker. But far beyond that, he aspired to a greater existence.
Each situation has the exact moment in which it is to be activated. In 1955, a friend introduced him to someone who became his instructor, Maria Luisa Peretti. He was 24 years old. Between 1962 and 1963 he returned to Italy for a second time, attended a school for hotel administration, and deepened his studies with Luisa. He worked in Brazil and visited her five times until 1972, the year in which he had a powerful experience with the one who had been guiding him for 17 years2.
***
At the age of 49, that is, in the fifth decade, which represents a cycle focused on universal and humanistic issues. Trigueirinho met Paul Brunton. In the following months, he remained from August 16th to October 25th at Findhorn, and then he visited Sara Marriott from September 22nd to 26th.3
In a recording of one of his lectures, he reported that it had been 25 years in 1955, since he became aware of the planetary impulse called Casa do Sol, in Italy.
In one of his recorded lectures, Trigueirihno stated the following: “In 1980 I had the clarity that I should temporarily stop the coursework and awareness work that was being done on the physical plane to spend an indefinite time in Europe again. There I came into contact with a great Force on the physical plane which, until that moment, I had only known on the subtle planes. I had felt this union, this help, but I had not yet contacted it as strongly as I did in 1980. This was in my meeting on the physical plane
with Paul Brunton, which for me synthesized a number of situations and clarified many things. At the meeting, self-confidence was worked on, although it was not mentioned, but it was what was being clarified and stimulated. By this I do not mean psychological confidence in personality, but self- confidence in the sense of trusting the Divine and trusting my spiritual task.”
***
Alan Berkowitz was with Paul Brunton at his apartment where the meeting with Trigueirinho took place. There the young American also met Trigueirinho. We exchanged a few emails, and in one of them Alan writes: “Paul Brunton lived in Vevey, in an apartment overlooking Lake Geneva. Across the lake, in France, was Mount Blanc, which reminded PB of the Himalayas. I assisted him as a secretary, as well as in personal health care – as he had been operated on for a hernia - and in practical day-to-day matters”.4
At that time Alan was studying at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He was also on a spiritual quest: “I became a student of Anthony Damiani and attended his lectures at the American Brahman Bookstore. Anthony was a devout student of PB, and later he and his students built the Wisdom’s Goldenrod Center for Philosophic Studies in a rural town, where I resided for two years, and which PB once visited. As PB was elderly, Anthony proposed, and he accepted, that the four residents of Wisdom’s Goldenrod could take turns coming to Switzerland to help him.”
Here is the text of a letter that Trigueirinho wrote Alan (in English) describing their meeting. Dear Alan,
In these days some people who are always in my heart and soul wrote to me. Among them, you have a very special place in my deep thoughts. To see your photo in the excellent consulting brochure that you send to me with your fraternal letter of March 20th, was a glad opportunity to remember the beautiful hours that we passed with PB in 1980. That encounter was very important in our lives, and for always we will be linked by the more pure connection. If you have the disposition to come to Brazil to spend some days with us in these farms, this would be the best signal of our spiritual union in all levels.
Fondly, Trigueirinho
More than 20 years later, Alan Berkowitz received the spiritual name Micha-El from Trigueirinho. Here is what he wrote about his meeting with Trigueirinho in PB’s apartment.
Paul Brunton and Trigueirinho – A Sacred Encounter
M i c h a - E l. At that time, PB was giving very few interviews, from half an hour to an hour at most. When José arrived at 10 am, I opened the door for him and led him into the living room. The two sat by the window. They talked all day, with pauses of silence. PB did not speak Portuguese, and José did not speak English at the time; so, they spoke in basic French.
It was dusk when the interview came to an end. I walked with José to the nearest train station. On the way he explained to me that this was the third time he had requested an interview with Paul Brunton. In the previous two he had been denied. The first time, PB said no through a letter. On the second occasion, José had gone to Vevey to see him and, while waiting in a cafe, a letter from PB was delivered by another assistant5, saying that he could not be with him [José] on that occasion. When given the letter, the assistant said to PB: "But PB, he has come so far to see you, how can you refuse?" Normally PB spoke in a very soft voice, but on this occasion he replied, very forcefully: “It is not the right time!”
At the end of our conversation, José added: “This was the most important day of my life.” After returning to the apartment, PB shared a number of very positive comments with me about Trigueirinho and his spiritual work.
Years later, one of Trigueirinho's oldest students, Germano, said that in their meetng, PB had validated his spiritual task, which was to with spiritual groups in Brazil.
Germano said:6
Over the years, Trigueirinho referred often to this meeting. I received letters from him in which he wrote about the deep connection between the two of them, at the Regent7 level, and that PB had guided him on the spiritual work to be done by him. That day, PB also showed him manuscripts of the Notebooks, his yet unpublished books. Knowing how much PB's work would interest his students and would need to be disseminated, from 1986 onwards José dedicated himself to having the Notebooks of Paul Brunton translated into Portuguese and Spanish.8
Alan continues:
Because fate had arranged the meeting between PB and José at the moment that I was present, my life took a different course from then on. It resulted in a task given by José himself, which I share with my wife Gran, another follower of his, with him authorizing us to translate and publish his work in English. We also work to translate Paul Brunton's work into Portuguese. For this purpose, a non-profit organization titled “The Shasti Association” - which is an affiliate of the Fraternity International Humanitarian Foundation - or FFHI, was created in California, USA.9
1 This student was Alan Berkowitz, who is now known as “Micha-El” (a name he received from Trigueirinho years later)
2 This is a reference to Trigueirinho’s meeting with PB
3 Sara Marriott was a spiritual teacher from Europe who in later years was invited to Brazil and co-founded with Trigueirinho a spiritual community named Granja Viana, which he later left to found Figueira.
4 ‘We’ here refers to Ana Regina Nogueira, the author of the book.
5 This was Timothy Smith, another student of Anthony Damiani, who spent a period of time with his then wife Devon, assisting PB in Switzerland.
6 This quote is excerpted from “Conversas Sobre Trigueirihno” (Conversations about Trigueirinho), Volume One, which contains accounts of students who were close to Trigheirinho, including Germano (p.34-49).
7 The Regent represents the highest level of the individual soul.
8 As a result of this effort, the first three volumes of the Notebooks were published in Spanish and Portuguese.
9 The FFHI is an umbrella organization which links all of the spiritual communities, the Monastery, humanitarian work, and other non-profit activities, including publishing, initiated by Trigueirinho during his career as a spiritual instructor (www.fraterinternacional.org/en/).
