Meath Conlan, PhD – Author and Counsellor

Over the past 30 years, Dr Meath Conlan has been a Counsellor and Spiritual Director to hundreds of men and women from all walks of life. His aim is to help individuals come away with a greater sense of inner peace and purpose, as well as increased openness to the world around. As an adult educator, Meath works with individuals and groups of any race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, marital status, or religious affiliation in an atmosphere of unconditional acceptance, mutual respect, and friendship.

Australian-born, Meath has wide experience of diverse cultural backgrounds and ethnicities. His mentor and friend of many years was the late Bede Griffiths, an English Benedictine, who, for over thirty years, resided in and taught at Saccidananda Ashram, Shantivanam, in South India. Through him, Meath’s outlook and sensitivity expanded to embrace a tolerant and inclusive understanding of all philosophies and spiritual traditions.

Meath's 60th - with Mother and sisters

As a young man Meath journeyed through Thailand, seeking teachers such as Buddhadassa Bikkhu, of Buddhist vipassana (insight) meditation. He finds this contemplative practice, together with contemplative Centering as taught by Thomas Keating of great help.

Meath undertook his first Zen meditation sesshin (retreat) in 1985 with Masters Ama Samy, (now Zen Master of Bodhi Zendo in South India), and the late Hugo Enomiya Lassalle – one of the first Europeans to bring Zen practice to the West. For over 20 years, as part of his activities in interreligious dialogue, Meath continues his keen interest in Zen.

Meath has earned a Master of Arts Degree from Fordham University, New York, and a Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of South Australia, in Adelaide.

Meath holds that his role as a Counsellor and Spiritual Director is to help others become more conscious, more ‘awake and aware’, and to offer guidance in developing personally meaningful practices that cultivate and deepen this self-awareness.

Meath desires to share insights that have motivated and deepened his personal life-understanding through the years. His talks are generally simply delivered and non-theoretical. He has a quiet yet lively style of presentation – rich with anecdotes drawn from his own and the lives of those with whom he has lived, in and around Shantivanam and other parts of the world.

Meath’s book – “Bede Griffiths: Friend & Gift of the Spirit” (2006, Templegate, Il) is available from Meath, or in bookshops, or online: (www.templegate.com). ISBN: 10:087243270X

Meath says: “At the heart of my counselling with others is an openness to feelings of hope, of well-being, and also of doubt, of loss, of anger; openness to feelings of aloneness, of paradox and confusion; openness to possibilities, states of unknowing, and levels of consciousness; openness to the commonplace, and also to the extraordinary; openness to grace, to the meaning of pain and suffering; openness to darkness and light, to a sense of otherness, of wonder, and of spiritual presence.”

Memberships & Affiliations

I have been on the Board of the Bede Griffiths Trust since 1993 (www.bedegriffiths.com). I am an active member of Spiritual Directors International and the Australian Network of Spiritual Directors, a member of Midlife Directions Inc. and a member of the International Institute of Alternative Therapies (Counselling).

“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, to think quietly, talk gently, act grandly; to listen to the stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden, and unconscious grow up through the common.”

- William Ellery Channing

For more information or a detailed itinerary of Diverse Journeys’ coming tours and workshops or retreats, please contact me today: meath@diversejourneys.com